Kiss the Enemy (Slye Temp)

by Dianna Love

  “Hey, I’m in.”

  And just like that, Nick was at the top of her favorite partners list.

  Ryder’s voice came on the comm. “We’ve got company. A sporte ute pulling into the drive. I count at least four inside. Time to move or get out.”

  Margaux held her breath, not sure what she hoped Sabrina would decide, but if they pulled back they’d lose the terrorist and Giovanni, and maybe sign the death warrants for thousands of innocent people.”

  Sabrina finally said, “Op is a go.” She paused then ordered, “Move in.”

  Margaux nodded at Nick then she slipped around the corner with Nick on her left side. She aimed at the guard on her right. Nick would take the one on the left.

  Giovanni turned to speak to his guard.

  Dingo and Sabrina would be approaching from the front, one covering the terrorist and the other watching Giovanni. It was imperative to bring those two out alive.

  Everything sharpened in Margaux’s surroundings. Time took on a life of its own, slowing until everything was in sharp focus.

  Sabrina’s booming order ripped through the room. “Hands in the air. Now!”

  Did they do that? Of course not.

  That would have been too damn easy,

  Both guards spun, shooting toward Dingo and Sabrina’s positions as they did.

  The terrorist sank into a squat, and Giovanni dropped to the floor, rolling away, but he had nowhere to go beyond the shelves.

  Margaux took out her guard with one shot to the head.

  Nick hit his target but missed the kill shot only because Giovanni knocked the guard into the shelves where he continued unloading his magazine.

  Bullets pinged against metal and the smell of gunpowder filled the air.

  With the rapid fire reverberating, the unknown terrorist must have decided the only threat was coming from the entrance, which had to be why he made a dash for the rear of the building.

  He was in his forties, twenty pounds overweight, and must not have been able to bring a weapon into the meet because he had yet to pull one.

  Even better? He was heading straight for where Margaux waited. This was too good to be true. Finally, something was going right.

  She told Nick, “I got this.”

  The shooting stopped. Pounding footsteps were the only sound interrupting the sudden silence.

  Eight feet from where Margaux hid in the shadows, the suspect looked up as she stepped out. His eyes bulged with shock then rage. She moved forward before he could react and put her weight into the motion, taking advantage of his forward momentum. She hooked an arm around his neck to clothesline him to the ground.

  He hit hard. Crack-your-skull hard.

  “Get up you piece of shit,” she ordered and kicked him in the side.

  He groaned and grabbed his head. “You fucking …”

  “The word you’re looking for is bitch.”

  “You’re a woman? You fucking whore. You’re gonna burn for this.”

  She smiled at him and squatted down. “We’ll see who burns.”

  Sabrina came striding up with an HK 416 in her hands. “All clear. Guards inside neutralized. Giovanni is contained. Backup have the four new arrivals restrained and hooded outside. ”

  Margaux searched his face for something that screamed merciless killer, but nothing magically pinged to identify him. Was this the Banker?

  “Do you have any fucking clue what you just screwed up?” the suspect on the ground mumbled in a pain-filled voice.

  Margaux prompted him. “By all means. Tell us what you were here to negotiate.”

  He turned to her, his face twisted with more hatred than she thought a human was capable of expressing visually. “You just fucked a two-year deep undercover DEA operation that was one day from success. I’ll see every one of you buried for this.”

  Sabrina demanded his superior’s name. When he gave it, she looked straight at Margaux and cursed.

  The agent’s eyes rolled back in his head just as Ryder’s voice came over the comm in clipped, urgent tones. “Four Atlanta police units pulling up out front. Two unmarked units in back. Alphabet agencies. We’re burned.”

  Blood rushed from Margaux’s head so fast she saw stars.

  She was alive because no one knew she existed.

  If she got arrested, she was as good as dead.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sabrina still wore the same black outfit when she walked into Margaux’s apartment at six in the morning, five hours after the busted op, but her ski mask was off and her black hair fell loose around her shoulders. For a deadly operative, she had a Catherine-Zeta-Jones look about her that made men who didn’t know her act like idiots.

  The ones who did know her had enough sense to respect a lethal weapon even when it wore a dress.

  Margaux shut the door and turned to lean against it with her hands in the pockets of her favorite jeans. Her hair was still damp from the shower she’d finally taken after trying to find Snake Eyes.

  He couldn’t hide forever.

  At Ryder’s word that the op was blown, Sabrina had turned to Margaux and given the signal that meant “get the hell out.” Margaux had used her skills at stealth and evasion to do just that, but as far as she knew, the rest of the team had stayed on site. Maybe even gotten arrested.

  Sabrina stopped in the middle of Margaux’s living room that she thought of as Shabby Chic, but accepted that it was just shabby. When Sabrina finally turned to her, she asked, “Did you find him?”

  Margaux knew she meant Snake Eyes. “No.”

  “Snitches go bad all the time.”

  “It’s illogical. I was paying him well.”

  “To hunt the Banker,” Sabrina said, finishing the unspoken part of that sentence.

  Margaux shook her head. “I’ve paid him for all kinds of intel that we’ve used for good busts all over this country.” Finally she shrugged.

  Sabrina spoke in her uber-pissed quiet voice. “I gave you warning after warning.”

  Here it comes. “I know.”

  “I let you leave the scene when the DEA agent passed out.”

  Margaux nodded, giving Sabrina the floor, because repeating “I know” or saying “I’m sorry” while she spoke would only make things worse.

  If that were possible.

  “I spent the last three hours pulling out every trick I could think of to keep my people out of jail and to convince the DEA that we had solid intel that those two were meeting to discuss a terrorist plot. Thankfully, White Hawk made it to Ryder’s van before the APD showed, because the minute that agent wakes up in the hospital tomorrow, he’s going to start screaming for the head of the woman who cracked his skull.”

  More head nodding. How could Margaux possibly make this up to Sabrina and the team?

  Sabrina crossed her arms. “I understand about Nanci’s death, but we all lose people. Especially in this business.”

  “Wait a damn minute,” Margaux snarled. “I would never, and I mean never, put the team in jeopardy for my own benefit or for anything less than solid intel. I told you everything I knew about that meeting. I was not chasing the Banker.”

  “But you thought he’d be there.”

  “Snake Eyes had a hunch and told me so, but I shut that down because it had no bearing on going after a terrorist with plans to kill people in Atlanta.”

  “There was a time that I’d have taken that at face value, but what happened eight months ago changed you.”

  Margaux started to argue, but Sabrina wasn’t finished. “I know what it is to lose someone that feels like losing a part of your body. I tried to get you to take some time to grieve, because you can’t help what it does to you. But you don’t have anyone besides this team. I made the mistake of allowing you to stay at work the entire time, and I told myself it was okay for you to spend time searching for a terrorist instead of climbing into a bottle or drugs. But you went too far this time for vengeance.”

  No matter what Margaux said, no
one was going to believe that tonight hadn’t been about retribution for Nanci’s death. And, to be honest, that was her own fault for not talking to Sabrina and letting her know that she’d let it go.

  Margaux had actually never been after vengeance so much as trying to quiet the voice in her head that accused her of doing nothing as Nanci died alone. She had to explain to Sabrina. “Nanci transferred here to help on our case. I don’t regret asking her, because we saved Ryder from a murder rap, but I pushed her to do things that went against her oath as an FBI agent. She did all that because—” Because she loved me like a sister. She took a breath. She never let her emotions show. Ever. In a firmer voice, she said, “Nanci did everything I asked, even when it reached the gray area of her job and all because I asked her to. She got a bullet between the eyes for it and I’m having a hard time getting past the helpless feeling of doing nothing.”

  “I haven’t forgotten her sacrifice and neither has the team.”

  Margaux heard the compassion, but also a hard line in Sabrina’s voice. “I know you’ve been patient and given me space, Sabrina. I’m telling you the truth that I let it all go earlier this past week. I swear to you I did not mislead you tonight.”

  Sabrina shook her head with disbelief. “But you didn’t tell me that you suspected the Banker would be at this meeting, did you? Then we break up a drug operation and there isn’t the first terrorist involved.”

  Margaux had no idea how this could have happened. She’d gone over it in her mind a hundred times already. She’d also tried calling and texting Snake Eyes, but he hadn’t returned her WTF text messages.

  Sabrina let out a sigh loaded with disappointment. “The problem is that you’ve lost the ability to think beyond any tip on the Banker, no matter how slim.”

  Margaux seethed over the accusation, but this was the time to stop arguing and start putting out fires. “I hear you. And in hindsight, I can see how you think that.” Only if she wore Coke-bottle glasses, but this was her mess. She’d accept responsibility. “How bad is it with the DEA?”

  “FUBAR, but I made a call I save as a Get-Out-Of-Deep-Shit-Free card and agreed to comp the DEA two missions ... regardless of the details.”

  Ah, hell, that sucked. Sabrina was judicious when it came to accepting or declining government jobs. Now she’d not only have to run an operation for free, but take ops that she might otherwise pass on.

  If Sabrina could do that, Margaux could grovel.

  “Sorry, Sabrina. I mean it. I’ll do whatever you want whenever you need it for free until that’s paid off.” Margaux wasn’t wealthy by any standard, but she had no life beyond being an operative for Sabrina and saved every penny. She could afford to go without pay for a while.

  “You don’t understand, Duke. I can’t fix this, not this time.”

  Margaux had come to recognize that slight variation of anger in Sabrina’s voice as concern. “I’ll disappear.”

  “Really. Then what? You’ll eventually have to tell someone the truth because your fingerprints aren’t in the system and you have no identity other than the one with Slye Temp. The days of easy cash for legitimate work are gone. Once someone figures out you’re hiding they’ll either sell you out to law enforcement or to—”

  Margaux held up her hand. “I know the risks, but I brought this on myself.”

  Sabrina’s gaze held something she was hesitating to say. “I made a deal with you that I’d protect your secret, but only as long as you stayed on the straight and narrow with me.”

  The first hint of true terror stirred in Margaux’s chest. “I have. I’ve been on the right side of the law the entire time with you.”

  “You don’t understand. You’ve hidden in plain sight as one of my people. The DEA agent you took to the ground tonight will be demanding your head. If all of a sudden you’re no longer on my team, someone will put two and two together. I could lie to them for three or four months, tell them you’re off on a mission, but eventually it would catch up with me and that would destroy the trust I’ve earned. That would be the end of my teams.”

  “What are you saying, Sabrina?”

  “That the safest place for you might be in the WITSEC program.”

  Margaux couldn’t speak for a moment past her shock. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I go there and I’ll be in lock down or I’ll end up dead.”

  “Not if we create a new identity and I pull some strings to get you in the system as a witness on a top secret case.”

  Margaux argued, “If the Feds don’t know I’m the one who called in the bombing in Arkansas six years ago, they won’t know to watch for Lonnie’s father.” The man had led a group of anarchists who were fueled by rage against the government. Lonnie had said he wanted to build a better world, and after the one Margaux had grown up in that sounded wonderful … until she found out the truth about their “freedom” group. When she’d balked, Lonnie had shown her just how little her love and her life meant. One bomb had gone off, and the only reason more people hadn’t died was because Lonnie and his father’s men had left her for dead.

  She’d called in time to prevent detonation of the other bombs.

  Sabrina had been the one to find her.

  Margaux pointed out what she saw as obvious. “If I go into WITSEC and end up working a normal job out in the open, Lonnie’s father will eventually find me and make me pay for his son’s death. And If I tell the Feds the truth about being Lonnie’s girlfriend, they’ll lock me up with crap about it being for my safety and I’ll never be free.”

  Her dad had been a single parent and a mean bastard. He’d constantly pointed out how her two brothers were something because they played football and she was nothing because she barely pulled average grades in school. One brother killed a person while driving drunk and the other one got a girl pregnant then disappeared. Yeah, they were something. Then Lonnie came along and convinced Margaux she was special, that together they could change the world.

  He’d only changed her world and in ways she shuddered to remember.

  Sabrina said, “I’ve thought about the Feds and Lonnie’s father. Give me time to work something out.”

  No way would Margaux put her life in the hands of law enforcement, not even WITSEC. Lonnie’s father had been a policeman once, and he still had friends on the force. He’d use those resources to find her. But saying so to Sabrina now would only double the guards outside. “So I’m under house arrest until you work that out?”

  Sabrina’s tight features eased, meaning she assumed Margaux was on board with waiting for a plan even if it ended up being WITSEC. “Yes. If you leave this apartment, I’ll have to report you.”

  That was straight-shooter Sabrina. She didn’t try to deny that those people downstairs in surveillance cars that had been here when Margaux arrived home were around for any other reason than to insure that Margaux stayed put.

  “That all?” Margaux might not show emotion, but it was ripping her insides. Sabrina had been her one friend, the one person besides Nanci who knew how much this pitiful life meant to her.

  And just how much it would cost Margaux to give it up.

  Sabrina’s jaw was rigid, all business. “I’ll be in touch. I expect you to be here when I do.”

  Margaux nodded. “Don’t leave town. Got it.”

  “I’m not joking, Duke. Make one step outside this building and I’ll consider you rogue. Don’t leave this apartment for anything short of a fire, and go out the front windows even then.” That was an order.

  “Whatever,” Margaux muttered. She opened the door but when Sabrina stepped through, Margaux said, “Wait.”

  Sabrina stopped. “Yes?”

  “Tell the team thanks for everything and—” Margaux hated to ask for anything, but she was asking now. “Please ... tell them that I told you exactly what I knew to be true. I would never hold back information pertinent to a mission or play games with the team.”

  “I’ll tell them.” But from Sabrina’s tone, she didn’t
expect many to accept that.

  When Sabrina left, Margaux stepped over to peer out the opening between the blinds and her window.

  Sabrina drove off in her Hummer. The dark sedan still parked outside appeared to hold one male and one female, but Margaux didn’t recognize either one.

  How many others had Sabrina ordered to watch her?

  Margaux’s burner cell phone finally buzzed. Only one person should be calling. She answered, “What the fuck was tonight about and where the hell have you been?”

  “Calm down,” Snake Eyes growled in a low voice that warned he was on edge, too. “I just found out the cops busted the place. What the hell happened?”

  Snake Eyes thought she was a hired assassin who did an occasional snatch job, because she let him think that. It was her persona, to be part of the criminal world. For that reason, she had to say, “What happened? You screwed me. You said it was a payoff for a terrorist attack going down in Atlanta to-day! Not a fucking drug deal.”

  “I got screwed, too, but this is as much your fault as mine.”

  She wanted her gun. “How do you see that?”

  “If you’ll calm down and kick the attitude to the curb, I’ll explain, Duke,” he said, using her street moniker The Duke, but neither Margaux nor Duke were the names on her real birth certificate, or on her death certificate.

  “This!” She pointed a finger at herself even though he couldn’t see it. “Is not attitude. This is pissed beyond sanity. Tell me something worth hearing or I’m hanging up so I can hunt you down.” False threat, but only until she was mobile again.

  “You hang up and we both die. We have to move fast or we’ll lose your Banker.”

  How could her heart jump with hope after what had happened tonight? She really was a nut case if she got sucked into this again. “Forget it, Snake Eyes. I already told you that I’m done with that bastard. He’s cost me more than I’ll ever recover.”

  “Bull. Shit. You aren’t bailing on me now. Not after the shitstorm you’ve dragged me into.”