by Dianna Love
Without Chelsea. Shit.
Josh’s shoulders constricted further, but he’d stay on task until he had reason to change course. “I’m here. You’re here. But my client’s asset is not. We doing this tonight or not?” Tell me you’re waiting on Chelsea again.
“The asset is being brought up for validation.” With that partial answer to Josh’s question, Mendelson went to a small marble-top table. A flask of liquor and two short-stemmed glasses had been placed on a tray of inlaid wood as though in anticipation of this meeting in a gentleman’s study.
There should be a reality show on the eccentric behaviors of wealthy international criminals.
Mendelson poured two glasses of the amber liquid. “I prefer a good cognac, but when in Rome...” He shrugged and offered the second glass to Josh. “Brandy?”
Josh would rather drink the devil’s piss than share anything with this bastard. “Sure.”
Moving to one of the chairs that faced the doorway, Mendelson took a seat. “Sit.”
“I’m not interested in games, Mendelson.”
Mendelson snapped his fingers and one of the bodyguards entered, sans tuxedo jacket and sporting an HK MP7 submachine gun, held loosely on a sling over one shoulder, but ready to use.
Josh got the message. He rolled his eyes as though the whole thing merely annoyed him, but sat in the other chair.
Where was Chelsea? She wouldn’t have disappeared yet when she hadn’t been paid his half of the fee.
He clicked through possibilities. Maybe Mendelson had paid his fee and Josh’s, and sent Chelsea away?
The sound of multiple footsteps pounding up the stairs reached the library, along with something being dragged. Two guards entered, turning sideways to carry the CIA agent, Len Rikker, between them, each gripping an arm. Gaunt from five weeks in Mendelson’s not-so-tender care, and bloody in too many places to count, Rikker’s head hung forward.
Josh stood and took a step toward the prisoner who had a scar at the hairline. One confirmation of the CIA agent’s ID. “Lift his head.”
A guard grabbed Rikker’s mop of scraggly brown hair and jerked his head back, raising Rikker’s swollen face into view. Josh studied the eyes and jaw line long enough to give the impression he would walk away if they tried to pawn off the wrong man on him.
Mendelson said, “Satisfied?”
“Yes.”
While Mendelson ordered the prisoner returned to his locked room in the basement, Josh used the distraction to twist his left cufflink twice, sending a message to move in and that the prisoner was underground.
With the prisoner out of the room, Mendelson put his glass down. “You may have your man as soon as you deliver my missiles. You have thirty minutes.”
Sabrina and the team required twelve minutes to get inside the secured area undetected and in position to infiltrate the building to find Rikker. “I’ll need GPS coordinates and a sat phone to call in my transport truck.” His nonexistent truck.
“Give the phone number to my man – ” Mendelson angled his head at his guard. “He will call with coordinates.”
The guard unclipped a satellite phone from his belt and eyed Josh who rattled off the number. Sabrina had someone sitting at a predetermined location two hours away with a disposable phone, and ready to leave the minute he finished the call.
When the guard ended the call, he told his boss, “Done.”
A grin spread across Mendelson’s face, one that sent worry skidding along Josh’s spine. He knew with that extra sense operatives develop that something had changed, even if everything seemed to be on schedule. He lifted his drink, killed the balance and set the glass back down, determined to find Chelsea. “Let’s get this done. Where’s Chelsea?”
“She will be along soon.” Mendelson took a sip of his drink. “She is quite unusual. I could find a place in my organization for her. Maybe a personal assistant who could attend to more than negotiations for me.” There was the sinister smile again when Mendelson slid a taunting look at Josh.
What was Mendelson up to with this bullshit?
Did he suspect a relationship between Chelsea and Josh? Or was he just testing with age-old bait to provoke a jealous reaction? But that would mean Mendelson knew Josh and Chelsea had been acquainted for much longer than this negotiation had taken.
No way. Josh tested right back. “What are you waiting for?”
Mendelson’s gaze turned curious, as if he weighed Josh’s reaction. “Then you would not mind?”
That hit too close to be fishing. Josh could count on two fingers the number of people who knew about him and Chelsea. Only the two of them. “Me? Why would I give a shit?”
“Perhaps I was wrong to believe you placed a high value on her. Either way, I will miss her perhaps almost as much as you will, but for different reasons.”
Noises in the hallway, like someone banging into the walls, turned Josh around.
The second bodyguard stepped into the room with Chelsea in his grasp. Blood ran down her arm and she struggled against a man who outweighed her by a hundred pounds.
She’d gotten in her fair share of licks, too, based on the guard’s broken nose, bleeding temple and torn clothes.
Josh didn’t know how it had happened, but they’d both been made.
CHAPTER 2
Josh lunged for the bodyguard with a stranglehold around Chelsea’s neck.
Mendelson’s other guard standing by swung the butt of his weapon and cracked the side of Josh’s head with the sharp metal stock.
Stars spun through his vision. Stumbling sideways, Josh swung around and kicked the guard’s chin, crushing jawbone with a satisfying crunch, and knocking him out cold. He snatched the MP7 away before the bodyguard hit the floor, dragging the sling off of the man’s limp arm.
As Josh gained control of the weapon, Mendelson sighed loudly. “Put the weapon down, Mr. Taylor, or I’ll order her death.”
Chelsea shouted at Josh. “Kill them!”
The brute shoved the muzzle of a Ruger P90 semi-auto pistol against her throat. “Shut up.”
Chelsea’s gaze met Josh’s, holding his long enough for him to see the doubt that they’d walk out of here alive. But she didn’t know he had a team coming. She only knew what he’d told her to make this exchange happen.
“Go ahead and shoot or put the weapon down,” Mendelson suggested. “Either way, we have a bit of a wait.”
Lunging against the guard’s tight hold, Chelsea shook her head at Josh to not give up the weapon, but he dropped it on the rug and turned to Mendelson. He warned in a cold voice, “You don’t want to double cross me.”
“Under different circumstances, I might agree, but I feel it necessary to inform you that a cellular jammer has been activated for this area.”
The change in topic cut through the haze of fury threatening to steal the last of Josh’s control. “And why would that matter?”
“I just thought you should know that you will not be able to reach your team even if you could get your hands on a phone.”
Mendelson knew about the team?
Not possible. Only a select group of individuals were aware that Sabrina’s team even existed and those were the ones she did contract work for. National security for the United States and similar departments in countries aligned with the US.
International alphabet spook groups.
Chelsea couldn’t have burned him and wouldn’t have, even if nothing existed between them. She had no motive, and knew Josh would use his resources to protect her grandmother. He’d already sent someone to watch over the elderly woman, but hadn’t had a chance to tell Chelsea.
Had Sabrina and the team been burned, too?
How much did Mendelson know?
None of those answers will get us out of here right now.
His number one priority? How was Josh going to warn Sabrina that the mission was an ambush?
“Might as well make yourself comfortable, Mr. Taylor,” Mendelson said in a congenial tone. He told his gua
rd, “Give me your radio.” Mendelson used the radio to call someone else in, as if this little room would hold more of the big brutes he employed. By the time Mendelson handed the radio back to his man, another guard ducked his head and stepped inside the already-crowded space.
Huge didn’t begin to describe this behemoth.
Nothing about his dark eyes, black unkempt beard and oily brown hair appeared German. Maybe South African, and the MP7 he carried looked like a toy in his hands. Clearly, Mendelson supplied his expensive help with equally expensive weaponry.
Josh shoved everything aside while he focused on first sending a message to his team before they inserted and to get Chelsea out of here. But his mind seemed determine to plague him with more questions. Why hadn’t Mendelson killed both of them yet? Why hadn’t Mendelson waited on the weapons to show his hand? Josh needed more information. “You trade humans for commodities. How can I be of more value than making a trade for your captive?”
“Oh, but I did trade for Mr. Rikker.”
He knows Rikker’s real name. Not good. How could Josh use that to his advantage? He feigned surprise. “Rikker? That’s not the name I was given. I think we’ve both been played. If that’s the case, I’ll make a deal for the weapons between the two of us, but the transport won’t arrive until I call a second time.”
Mendelson’s eyes creased with humor. “Let’s end this charade, Mr. Joshua Carrington. There is no transport and no weapons. You and your Slye team are what I received in trade for Rikker. He is being delivered to the higher bidder as we speak.” Mendelson smiled with genuine pleasure.
The last trace of Josh’s hope sucked away faster than water down a bottomless hole. Terror ripped through him at the level of betrayal it took for this to be happening. Something about Mendelson’s calm demeanor poked its way into his thoughts. “Why aren’t you upset about losing the weapons?”
“Because I don’t need them. I allowed my first shipment of weapons to be taken and they’re being replaced. I made a more advantageous deal for the CIA agent.”
What the fuck?
Mendelson continued, “As for a truly valuable trade, Sabrina Slye is wanted by many people.” ~*~
Who had screwed Sabrina? Josh forced himself to sound detached. “Well, hell, as long as I’m dead, at least tell me who sold me out.”
“You’re of no use to me dead. I will get much information from you and your team before I put each of you on the auction block. As to the person who set this up – I will only share that it was CIA.”
Mendelson was wrong on one point.
Josh would likely die and very soon, because he would not stand by and let this unfold without a fight. He chuckled with dark humor, as if he’d always expected to be betrayed by someone, and muttered, “Should have expected that out of those bastards.”
That drew a gloating smile from Mendelson so Josh asked, “Mind if I get comfortable while we wait?”
“By all means.”
Taking off his jacket, Josh kept an eye on Chelsea in his peripheral vision. She’d stopped struggling, her eyes tracking every move he made, and listening intently to how they’d both been screwed by his people. Not my people anymore. He jerked his bowtie loose and unfastened the first two buttons of his shirt. When he removed the cufflinks that only his team knew about, he put both metal clips in one hand and rolled them around together as if playing with a pair of dice.
Doing that for longer than ten seconds caused a signal to activate that would screech in Dingo’s receiver and deactivate Josh’s tracking unit.
Breaking the connection was code for FUBAR, or get the hell out of here now.
He walked over to the tall bookshelf and leaned against it, ticking off seconds in his mind, hoping ten minutes would pass with no sound.
But eight minutes later the first explosion rocked the house, not surprising him in the least that his team was here.
Josh, Sabrina and Dingo had never left each other as kids and wouldn’t now, but he’d tried his best to warn them off. Mendelson shoved to his feet. Surprise burst across his face.
Gunfire rattled outside the house. Glass windows shattered downstairs.
One of the guards snatched up his radio and spoke in rapid German, but Josh easily translated the demand to know what was happening.
And the terse reply that they were under attack.
Mendelson roared, “How did four people get past twenty-seven armed guards?”
Josh knew the answer to that, but not how Sabrina and company was going to exit past that many now that every armed guard knew his target was inside the perimeter.
While Mendelson shouted orders at his people, Josh looked at Chelsea whose gaze shifted into the quiet calm he’d seen whenever she was about to kick someone’s butt.
He gave her an imperceptible nod.
Her guard’s attention was locked on Mendelson.
Chelsea sagged, forcing the guard to move his weapon to hold onto her dead weight.
Josh lunged at Mendelson, shoving him into the behemoth guard holding the MP7.
Mendelson shouted. His guard stumbled back but recovered quickly, knocking Mendelson aside to free his weapon hand. The giant shoved a little too hard. Mendelson’s head hit the doorframe and he tumbled to the floor.
The guard got off a shot that ripped through Josh’s side, but Josh grabbed the submachine gun and shoved it to the left. He held onto the foregrip with one hand while he battered steel punches to the guard’s head, trying for a kill punch to the throat.
Not hurting the mountain of muscle one bit.
Chelsea head butted her captor, who lost his grip on her. She reached between his legs and twisted a fistful of his gonads. He screamed.
She grabbed for the Ruger, but missed it as the weapon fell from his hands and skidded behind him.
The guard Josh fought still held onto the MP7 with one hand. Josh battled to keep the muzzle pointed toward the ceiling – away from Chelsea. A bear-sized fist slammed Josh hard in the ribs. At least one cracked, but he hoped the flood of adrenaline would mask the pain for a while.
The guard had four more inches of reach and used it to grab Josh by the throat. He squeezed, cutting off Josh’s air. Pinpricks of light shot through his gaze.
He bashed the guard’s elbow joint with his free hand. Nothing gave in the hard-muscled arm.
Mendelson was sprawled on his side, still unconscious, with blood running down his face from his head wound. His body impeded any fancy maneuvering in the close quarters.
Josh finally got both hands on the tug-of-war gun. Before he gave it his all he had to break the giant’s hold. Lifting his boot, he slammed the guard’s kneecap.
Bone snapped. The guard screamed and Josh yanked the gun free.
Finally, a vulnerable body part on the hulking bastard.
The guard’s grip on Josh’s throat loosened. He sucked air through his raw throat and swung the metal rail of the MP7’s fore-end into the guard’s head, busting open a bleeding geyser.
Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Chelsea break free from her guard, the one she’d tried to neuter. She kicked him backward. He hit the floor hard.
She spun around and drove one of her spiked heels through his throat.
Just as effective as a double tap.
The guard Josh fought yelled and reached for him again in a haze of pain and rage.
Fighting this bastard was like trying to take down a Mac truck using his fists.
Coughing from a bruised windpipe, Josh swung the MP7 around and released a fast burst into the guard’s chest. “Game over.” Then he drew a hard breath, ears ringing from the gunfire in the small space. Choking, unable to speak, he turned to wave Chelsea out of the room so they could get going.
She took one look at Josh and started toward him.
That’s when a movement on the floor caught his eye.
Mendelson had been playing possum, lying on his side, his upper body out of Chelsea’s line of sight.
Th
e world slowed to seconds that stretched from one loud heartbeat to the next.
Mendelson lifted the Ruger from beside him.
Josh swung up his own weapon, yelling at the same moment, but only a croaked sound came out.
Chelsea stared, confused for a split-second too long before she realized what was happening and tried to move.
Both shots exploded at the same moment.
Josh’s was a hair too late.
He caught her as she folded to her knees. The bullet had passed through her chest. Had it hit her heart? Not if she was still moving. Blood spilled out the gaping hole. She covered it with her hands, eyes glassy with shock.
He scooped her into his arms, ignoring the screaming pain in his ribs and side. “Hold on,” he ground out of his raw throat.
Frightened green eyes stared up at him. “Tried...to...tell you...not to come.”
“I know, baby,” he rasped. “Couldn’t leave you.”
He made it to the stairs and looked down to find two armed guards on the main floor with their weapons pointed out broken windows.
He started to lower Chelsea to the ground to free his hands.
The front window and door exploded into the house.
Both guards flew backwards, knocked off their feet. The sharp smell of burned electronics, smoke and charred wood flooded the air from the plastique his team had used to blow the door. Josh’s back hit the wall, but he remained upright with Chelsea gripped tightly in his arms.
Sabrina Slye burst through the smoke-filled opening like an avenging angel, and took out both of the inside guards with quick double taps from her weapon. Black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her dark molle vest was covered in pouches holding enough ammo to take down a small city. Short blonde hair so out-of-context with his olive skin color, Dingo rushed in right behind her and looked up to where Josh stood “We got burned, mate.”
Josh had never been so happy to hear that Aussie accent in his life. He raced down the stairs to the main floor, gritting against the pain cutting through his adrenaline rush. “I know. There’s no package downstairs. Tell you everything later. Where’s Singleton? Chelsea needs a medic.”
