by Becky McGraw
“No!” she protested, putting her trembling hand to his face. “I just want to lay down for a little while and I’ll be fine.”
Slade studied her eyes to see that her pupils were even, considered that she seemed coherent. “Fine, but I’m calling in a medic to check you out.”
He’d seen a new application in Logan’s email from a former Delta Force guy who was also a combat medic, and the man was hired if he could get to the compound in the next hour. The way things were going lately, it looked like Deep Six needed one.
“Slade?”
“Yeah?” he replied.
“I’m sorry for overreacting,” she said, putting her hand to his face, her eyes dropping to his mouth making his lips tingle. Her thumb raked over the beard stubble he hadn’t been able to shave that morning and the friction caused tingles elsewhere in his body. “In the scheme of things, the least I can do is wear a bra at the office.”
His eyes glided down to her pert breasts tipped by still-hard nipples. “I’m okay with you going braless, because I sure don’t want to wear a padded jock,” he replied with a laugh. “I’m sorry for bringing it up and I apologize for being a hardass this morning.”
“I kind of like your hard ass,” she said breathily, her eyes catching his.
Heat beat down on his back as he held her gaze, but it nowhere compared to the heat that sizzled through his body at the heat he saw in her eyes. The air between them crackled, the buzz of his lips became electric as he fell into the magnetic pull of her eyes and his head drifted toward hers. Her heated breath brushed his mouth as his lips sealed to hers.
Her hand glided over his neck to his nape to pull him closer, and lightning zipped down his spine when her tongue traced the seam of his mouth. Slade opened his mouth, embraced her tongue and her sweetness engulfed his senses. His hand glided up her side to her breast, and he swallowed her moan when he raked his thumb over her turgid nipple.
Taylor leaned into him, kissed him deeper, and Slade groaned, but Lola’s sharp bark jerked him out of the sensual spell. The crunch of tires on pea gravel sent a shock of adrenaline through him and he whacked his head on the doorframe as he pulled away. Heart pounding, he glanced down the road to see the black Suburban parked at the side of the road near her car.
Slade slammed the door then sprinted around the vehicle to get behind the wheel. He cranked the engine and grabbed his pistol from the console, before he eased his foot on the gas, hoping that the men in the SUV hadn’t noticed them yet.
“Get my phone off the dash and call Dex. Have him open the gate for us, and tell him to get the guys ready in case those assholes follow us.”
With a small whimper, Taylor snatched the phone off the dash and called Dex, while Slade watched the rearview for signs of the black SUV. It was only a few miles to the compound, and safety, but he didn’t speed because he didn’t want to draw attention to them.
Somehow the perps, whoever they were, knew exactly where to find Taylor’s car, so there was either a GPS tracker on her car, or they had tapped into her cellphone. He was going to have Dex find out which it was when they retrieved her car, because if they’d tracked her through her cell phone, the perps now had their team numbers too and could track them as well. It also meant they had a techie like Dex on their side, which was not good news for Deep Six.
Those guys had been following her movements since she left the hotel. They knew she’d stopped over at the Deep Six office in town, and probably took that as a sign she knew something about their operation—whatever that was. Slade knew for sure this thing was about a lot more than a kidnapping now. They wouldn’t be trying to kill Taylor otherwise.
“You know what?” Taylor asked, and Slade glanced over to see her brow puckered.
“What?” he asked.
“Lola’s bark reminded me of something.”
“What’s that?” Slade asked, his shoulders relaxing when he saw the gate at the compound was open wide, and Caleb was set up right inside with his rifle. He relaxed more when he glanced in the mirror and didn’t see the Suburban.
“The way she barked and acted the night she found that car bomb, was exactly the same way she reacted when she sniffed the hem of Tariq’s pants in my office the day I was fired. I just thought she didn’t like him, but—”
Slade’s muscles tensed as his eyes flew to her again and he swerved. “You think Lola alerted on him?”
Taylor shrugged. “I just know she barked the same and her hair stood up.”
“Did she lay down?” Slade asked quickly, as he swung the Humvee into the driveway. If she did that meant, he’d been in contact with the kid too. But then he realized that was before he put her on Zami’s scent. And since Tariq was family, he would have had reasonable contact with him anyway.
“No, just hunched and barked.”
Taylor gasped, and Slade’s body jerked. He wished like hell she would stop doing that! He pulled to a stop near the office, and turned in the seat to glare at her. “What the hell is it now?”
Her eyes were filled with guilt and shame when they met his. “I’m a terrible doggie mother!” she admitted, her lower lip trembling. “I left here earlier and forgot all about Buddy being in the kennel in your apartment!”
Slade rolled his eyes, and turned to open the door. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you. You were upset and that was my fault. I assure you I’d have taken care of him for you.”
By the time he opened the back door and let Lola out, Taylor was halfway to the barracks, running like the hounds of hell were chasing her. And maybe they were, he thought, as he shut the door. But he was damned determined they weren’t going to catch up with her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Instead of following Taylor to the barracks, Slade went to Logan’s office and fired up his computer. He needed to call that medic to come and check her out, then he was going to research that therapy he was now committed to doing.
“What was that all about?” Caleb asked, walking into the office to sit down.
“Someone was following Taylor when she left here. They tried to kill her, and we need to find out why.” Slade’s stomach clenched at how close they’d come to actually succeeding.
“Well, they didn’t follow you back to the compound, so that’s a plus.”
Caleb sat back in the chair and casually crossed his calf over his knee, like the last thirty minutes had been a cakewalk for him, like standing sniper duty at the front gate in the middle of the morning was all in a day’s work. Other than curiosity as to why he was chosen for the duty, he didn’t appear to be fazed at all.
They must hand out nerves of steel in the Army along with those sniper pins, Slade thought, because even though he was a former Marine, he felt sick at his stomach and like ants were crawling under his skin right now. That’s another reason he was trying to find something mundane to do while he calmed down. Caleb wasn’t helping him with that task by sitting here asking questions that reminded him of it.
“Yeah, it’s a plus,” Slade agreed, clicking the mouse to open Logan’s email. “But they know where the compound is now, because we brought her car here, so keep your eyes open.”
When the little arrow on the screen wouldn’t move to the scroll bar so he could find the damned email, he banged the mouse on the desk as if trying to kill it, until it finally moved.
“How’d they find the compound?” Caleb pressed, and Slade bit back a growl.
“They either have a tracker on her car, or they accessed her cell phone,” Slade replied, leaning closer to the screen to focus as he scrolled through the emails.
“Who’s they and why would they be after her?” Caleb asked like a prosecutor going in the kill in a courtroom.
With a huffed breath, Slade turned to face him, and tried to get a handle on his irritation so it didn’t filter into his words. “I have no idea, but her car’s in a ditch about two miles toward town. Make yourself useful and go tell Levi to get a tow truck to pull it out. Have Dexter look it over an
d figure out who they is. Her cell phone is on the front floorboard.”
“Dex is huddled up with Gray right now, because I think Gray may have a lead on the kidnappers.” Caleb laced his fingers over his middle, and the foot resting on his knee began to rock, the only sign he may not be as cool and collected as he wanted to appear.
“What did he find?” Slade snapped, his heart lurching.
“I guess the wire transfers for the ransom have been set up for Friday,” he replied with a shrug. “But there’s some kind of catch. That’s all I heard.”
Slade tensed and prepared to stand but plopped back down in the chair. He’d done enough overreacting already today. Although patience was not a virtue he’d been blessed with, he was going to show some, let them work out the details and come to him. His team was good, the best. He knew Dex and Gray would seek him out when they had answers.
“Go tell Levi what I said, okay?”
“I’ll do better, I’ll go help him to keep him out of trouble.” Caleb lowered his foot and stood. “Sounds like he might find some there, and I’m bored. That excitement at the front gate is as much as I’ve had in three months.”
“You could always stay here and mop the barracks,” Slade suggested with a tight smile, and Caleb’s face paled. “It smells like man funk in there and since we have a couple of women in our ranks now, I’m sure they would appreciate it.” With a growl, Caleb spun on his heel and streaked out of there like his tail was on fire.
Slade bit back a laugh, as he turned back to the computer and grabbed the mouse to resume scrolling through the emails to find the word CLASSIFIED in the subject line. It finally appeared and he double-clicked to open it.
The email had come in nearly a month ago, and from what he’d read when he scanned it yesterday, this guy was not only a combat medic, he was a total badass, which made him wonder why Logan hadn’t hired the man himself. Probably because between the wedding plans and practicing for the honeymoon with Susan, he hadn’t had time to think about it.
The email opened and Slade skipped over the personal information to go to his qualifications to refresh his memory. With every line he ticked off, Slade got more excited. Honorably discharged Delta Force operator, who was previously an Army combat medic, presently worked for a black ops security firm and had just come off of a mercenary mission in Africa, and finished one in Columbia before that. Weapons and explosives expert, hostage rescue and counterterrorism specialist, spoke three languages including Farsi. By the time Slade reached the bottom of the extensive list to find out that he was also a Texas native he was sold.
The 1st Special Forces Operations Division-Delta did not just sign up anyone who applied, and neither did the black ops companies who hired former soldiers as mercenaries. They required their operators to be eligible for the highest level of security clearance there was next to God. Because of his mad skills, and experience, the only question would be could Deep Six afford him. That could be exactly the reason tight-ass Dave Logan hadn’t hired him yet.
Freelance mercenaries got paid a lot of money, because they accepted the missions nobody else wanted. They were hired muscle, and knew every operation could be their last. Most of those guys didn’t retire until they were more fucked up than Slade was when he came out of the corps, or dead. Even the government hired those men to handle some of their covert missions when they anticipated a high casualty rate.
Whatever the price though, Deep Six needed more men like Cade Winters on their team.
He located the phone number on the resume, picked up his cell phone and dialed. Winters didn’t answer, and his brusque voice in his voice mail message kind of made Slade second guess himself. The thing that made the Deep Six team special was they mostly got along and respected each other. This guy sounded like an arrogant asshole. Short and abrupt. But then most guys who had his kind of credentials were. He’d just have to reserve judgment until he met with the man face-to-face and felt out whether he’d be a good fit for the team.
Slade left a message telling Winters if he was still interested in a job he wanted to talk to him as soon as possible, and not thirty seconds later, his phone rang back. Picking it up he saw it was from the same number he’d just called. He pushed the button to answer, but before he could speak, the man on the other end of the line said, “I got a call from this number.”
The hair on the back of Slade’s neck stood up as he sat up and cleared his throat. That’s the kind of voice and tone the man had. “Yes, I was looking over the resume you emailed to Dave Logan a month ago regarding a job with Deep Six Security.”
“You read my email?” he growled angrily.
“Logan is on his honeymoon, and he left me in charge of hiring.” Not exactly true, but close enough.
“I changed my mind,” Winters said roughly. “Logan is a friend, but I don’t want to work for a company that is so loose with classified information. It could get me killed. I thought he was better than that.”
The line went dead, and anger burned through Slade like wildfire. How dare that cocky bastard speak about Logan or Deep Six like that. I thought he was better than that. Like he was some supreme spec ops god who had judged the company and found them not up to his lofty standards. I don’t want to work for a company that is so loose with classified information.
Well, Slade had a few things to say to him, and he was going to say them if it took him fifteen calls to do it. He hit the recall button on his phone and brought it to his ear, but Dexter walked through the door, and he disconnected. He saw Gray standing in the hall behind him.
“We have a lead, but we may not have enough manpower to follow up on it,” Dex said, as he flopped down in the chair across from him, and Gray walked in to sit beside him.
“Why is that?” Slade asked, thinking about Cade Winters again.
“The payment isn’t being made in one lump sum,” Gray informed. “Half of the ten million is set to deposit into an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. The other half is going to an account in Saudi.”
“The Caymans account tracked back to a shell corporation in Houston,” Dexter added, then scrubbed a hand over his face. “The other account is owned by a Saudi corporation with ties to radicals.”
“Terrorists?” Slade asked, wanting to clarify what Dex meant by radicals.
“Most likely, but we haven’t verified that yet,” Dex replied. “The only way we can be sure is to send someone over there to investigate, or find someone with knowledge of the terrorist organizations operating over there, because they don’t exactly advertise.”
“That will take more time than we have,” Gray said. “Those transfers will be made first thing Friday morning. I’d hazard a guess that the money will be transferred out immediately and the accounts closed. Tracing it after that will be difficult, because if I were them, I’d send it off in fifty directions.”
“Has Mac found anything yet?” Slade asked, losing hope that anything about this case was going to be easy. “The kid is what I’m most worried about at the moment.”
“No, but I did some recon last night on Google Earth, and found a restaurant across the street with cameras pointing directly at the hotel lot. I contacted the owners and their security company is sending me a copy of the footage.” Dexter smiled, looking awfully pleased with himself. “There’s also a traffic camera at the intersection, and I’m in the process of, um, seeing if it caught anything.”
“Good work,” Slade said, unable to stop the corner of his mouth from kicking up. The MIT-trained computer geek never ceased to amaze him. “How long before you get the footage?”
“The security company is uploading it to my server as we speak. I asked them for the high resolution version, so probably another hour or so.”
Slade opened his mouth, but froze. Those cameras could have also caught whoever planted the bomb on the prince’s vehicle. He and Taylor would be off the hook then, and they’d also know who was behind it. Maybe they could determine if there was a connection
to the kidnapping.
“Dex can you call them back and get footage for the following day too? If the camera caught the kid being abducted, maybe it caught the bomber too.”
“You got it, bossman,” he said, shoving up to his feet. He winked, and a wide grin spread over his face. “If you need someone to go to the Caymans, I’m your man.”
No, what Slade needed was someone to get inside that hotel to see what was going on. Someone who knew terrorist organizations, spoke Farsi, and was good at covert ops. Someone who the prince wasn’t familiar with, but might trust enough to hire.
The prince needed a new bodyguard and Deep Six needed Cade Winters to be that man. Not as an employee for now, but maybe as a freelance operator. No matter how much Slade thought he was a blowhard, he had to try to hire him.
“Gray, I need you to find me a hundred grand,” Slade said, and the accountant’s head snapped up from his legal pad and his face went as white as his crisp dress shirt.
“Where the hell do you think I’m going to find a hundred thousand dollars?” he asked incredulously.
“The Deep Six cookie jar?” Slade replied with a laugh, and Gray frowned. “I don’t know—sell some of Dexter’s toys or something. I need it as soon as possible though, because I have a freelance mercenary to hire.”
Gray took a couple of deep breaths and some of his color returned. “Logan is going to kill you when he gets back.”
“He can only kill me once,” Slade replied, with a laugh. “And the way things are going he’ll have to get in line.”
A deep sigh was Gray’s goodbye as he walked out of the office.
If this worked out with Winters, they could fast track this investigation but that still didn’t put the man here to check out Taylor’s health status. That knot on her forehead, any head injury, was nothing to play around with. Slade knew that firsthand.
