by Powers, Jade
Sven already knew the mission was scrubbed. Somehow Tom or his accomplices caught wind of the stake-out.
Time up. Cutting in on the radio, Sven said, “Let’s pull it.”
His team melted away, their presence on the street so non-descript that in moments they were away without any civilians aware that an operation had been in progress.
Sven met Drake in the control room three hours later, a hotel suite converted into operation central.
Drake wore a grim expression, arms crossed and brow furrowed. “Bryce called. He was kidnapped some time ago which led to this whole fiasco. Tom swapped him for the location of the sphere. They kept Tom.”
“Why wouldn’t Tom bring us in? He knows we’ve got experience.” Sven wanted to kick something.
“Probably scared of what they’d do to Bryce. We’ve got to clean up Spokane.”
Dressed in a pair of beige shorts, t-shirts, and Birkenstocks, Sven looked more like a college student than a corporate spy. Sven said, “Put Lauren in charge of finding the bugs. She’s the only one in the damn branch that reported threats. And Tom? What about his last known location?”
“As soon as Bryce called, I sent Gonzalez and Thorne in. The place is empty. Someone in the hotel called an ambulance, a disguise to cover Tom’s removal from the hotel. There’s no one there now, and staff isn’t talking.” Drake ran a hand through silver tinged hair. He spoke sharply, each word punctuated. “We are getting Tom back.”
It was this kind of crap that gave a person silver hair and totally explained Drake’s premature grey. Sven grunted, “Great. I’ll put Alpha team on finding Tom’s location.”
A nagging in the back of Sven’s mind urged him to call Minka. He shoved it back further—he had to keep his mind on the problem at hand. “Did you get information on Bryce’s location?”
“He was at the Metrodade stop near the University of Miami.” Drake grinned and slapped Sven’s shoulder, “Lots of beautiful women at that school.”
Minka. Even when he was trying to focus, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Sven grumbled, “I’ve got one I like just fine back in Spokane.”
“I knew something had changed. When this is all over, you’ll have to tell me about it.”
Drake and Sven were good friends, but they became men in the rank and file of the military. They didn’t chat about their social calendar with lives on the line.
Chapter 17
AFTER AN AFTERNOON tromping through Miami looking for some indication of where Bryce, Tom, or the mind-control sphere might be, Sven was ready to crash. He’d forced his mind to focus on the job at hand, but without any leads, they were just going in circles.
Drake called off the team at two. “I heard from Bryce. No word on Tom, but Bryce is going for the sphere. He’s worried about his dad and doesn’t want a team.”
Sven said, “And we’re letting him make that call?”
Drake shrugged, “He’s not sharing complete details. For now, yes.”
That three hour window was enough for Sven. He needed to call Minka. Even if they were just friends, she would need to talk about what happened Saturday night. He should have called yesterday...or the day before. Hopefully she got the flowers.
The phone rang and rang, going to voicemail. Sven left a message, “It’s Sven. I’m still in Miami. Just hoping to talk. Call me at the hotel. I’m in the Coral Suite.”
Sven hung up the phone. Minka was probably still at work.
The Coral Suite was Drake’s base of operations. Half a dozen people lounged in the chairs, studying the room service menu. Gonzalez waved a menu at Sven, “Hey, you gonna eat or moon after that woman?”
Sven stalked toward Gonzalez. If Minka could see him, she’d drool. His muscles sculpted the thin t-shirt in form-fitting fashion. Drake’s admin, Kendra, gave him a second look before returning to her laptop. Sven wasn’t her type, even if the confidence in his stride and striking features made her do a double-take.
Grabbing the menu from Gonzalez, Sven said, “Come on, Man. I don’t get all horny during missions. That’s your thing.”
Gonzalez grinned, “No, you just love ‘em and leave ‘em.”
That was what all of the guys thought. Sven had sex with fewer of his supposed conquests than any of them would imagine, but he liked giving off the image of a handsome player. Truth was he didn’t trust half the girls on his arm. They threw themselves at him at McFarland’s parties. He always drove them home, the perfect gentlemen, but he walked away without so much as a kiss. The whole thing was tedious.
But Sven agreed. He said, “When you’re as good looking as me, it’s hard to fend off so many women at once.”
Kendra rolled her eyes. She said, “I hope you fall in love someday.”
Gonzalez laughed, “Don’t curse the man.”
Sven thought there was the slight possibility that it had already happened. Did falling in love involve obsessive thoughts about a woman’s lips...her gorgeous hair, the feel of her fingers on his shaft. God, he needed to stop this. He parried with his food order, “Yeah, yeah, I’m a freaking love machine. I’ll take turkey on wheat with the works, and the barley soup.”
Kendra scribbled down his order. With her eyebrow lifted toward Gonzalez, she asked, “And you?”
“Burger, fries, and a coke. Not all of us have a girlish figure to maintain,” Gonzalez looked not at Kendra, but at Sven.
Sven didn’t take the bait. In the depths of his thoughts, Minka hovered. He wondered how he’d gone from attracted to hooked. He needed to get back to Spokane. First, find the sphere, then Tom. After that, he would tell Drake he needed to step back and woo Minka.
Sven had expected the team to hear from Bryce. He was shocked when halfway into his turkey sandwich, Tom’s kidnappers called.
Kendra manned the phone. A computerized voice asked for Drake. She waved Drake over and handed him the phone with a hissed, “Kidnappers.”
“Drake here.”
“We need to trade. Tom for the mind-control device.”
“You know Tom left our office with the technology. I don’t have anything to trade.”
Tom’s captor was silent. He said, “And if the technology falls into your hands?”
“We don’t negotiate with kidnappers. It sets a dangerous precedent.” Drake stared into the distance, shutting his mind off to the danger he thrust on his friend. If the kidnappers were serious, Tom would disappear or be found in some abandoned alley. It was a hell of a thing to do to someone you cared about.
With a click, the phone went dead.
“They think we have the sphere. Tom didn’t give it to them after all.” Drake said aloud.
Sven pushed his half-eaten sandwich away, “There was nothing you could have done. The minute they had the sphere, they would kill Tom anyway. No loose ends.”
“We don’t know that.” Drake said. He seemed to have aged a year in the past five minutes.
“We do. His son is safe, and that’s what Tom wanted. He didn’t betray you.” Sven realized as he said the words that it probably made the situation worse for Drake, but it meant something. A friend with his son’s life on the line chose honor and with clever maneuvering managed to keep the sphere out of enemy hands.
“This has been a cluster from the start. They know too much about our operations. Even if we get him back, I’ve got the feeling this isn’t over. It won’t end with Tom.”
MINKA’S WEEK HAD DRAGGED wearily along. She unlocked the door to her apartment with half of her attention on the neighboring apartment. Sven hadn’t made a sound in days. Slowly unlocking the door, Minka hesitated for a moment. Before she could think through her actions, she crossed the threshold and pounded three times on Sven’s door.
She listened. Her own door was half open, keys still in the lock. She didn’t even know what she would say if he answered. But his apartment was quiet.
The seconds ticked by. Nothing.
Her step was slower now, her head down. She pulled
her key from the lock and slammed the door shut. Dumping her keys in her purse, Minka noticed the answering machine light blinking.
Minka dropped her purse on the counter and hit the button. She felt like a puppy whose master had just returned, all trembling and squirming with anticipation. Sven’s voice crossed the country and lightened her heart. He did care. Minka hadn’t realized how much she needed to hear from Sven.
She fumbled the pen and the notepad and had to rewind the message to get the phone number. Then she waited a half hour just to figure out what she was going to say. She didn’t want to be just friends. She hated this weird limbo. In the end Minka decided she’d call and let the conversation play itself out.
The phone rang three times. Minka hoped Sven would be in his room. She certainly wasn’t expecting another woman. A female voice answered, “AIT, this is Kendra.”
Grinding her teeth, Minka hung up the phone.
She felt as if someone had taken a giant rubber band and squeezed her center into a tight ball of iron. The pain hit that hard and hurt that much.
Well, now she knew. If Sven would have a woman in his hotel, he wasn’t the man for her. Minka’s jaw jutted in stubborn anger. There was nothing keeping her here now. Damn him. Damn his handsome smile and piercing eyes and the way he touched her.
Before she could second-guess, Minka called her mom, told her she was moving home, then she called the landlord. It would only take a few days to get her stuff repacked. Minka hated Spokane. It was the place where she learned to detest Joe, where all of her hopes and dreams unraveled. Lastly, she called her coworker and best friend. She said, “Alice, I’m not coming in tomorrow. My stuff is mostly packed. I’m moving back home to Ellensburg.”
“What about Sven?”
Minka thought back to her night of lovemaking with Sven. She could get addicted to a man like that, but not at the cost of her dignity. She said, “I don’t know him. He’s no reason to stay.”
Just saying the words made her want to cry, but Minka was made of sterner stuff.
“But you just got a new apartment. Don’t run off like this. At least come into work and give proper notice. Two weeks isn’t that long. It will give you time to figure things out.”
“I’ll come into work today, but that’s it. I know it’s not proper, but I just can’t stay. I’m sorry, Alice. I know I’m putting you in a tough position.”
Alice shrugged, “We’re in a bit of a slump anyway. I have time to train a replacement before it gets too rough. Come in tomorrow, and if you still feel the same, then tomorrow can be your last day.”
Minka expelled a breath she didn’t know she was holding, “Thanks, Alice. I knew you’d understand.”
“Honey, I don’t understand in the slightest. Your life is getting on track. That new fellow of yours is sweet and seems to care about you. Are you sure this is the best plan? It is a rather extreme reaction.”
Minka couldn’t tell Alice about that phone call. She felt as if it was an indication of some failure within her, that somehow she hadn’t given enough or been enough, and all of her relationships would end with the guy in bed with another woman. She said, “I feel like I’m going to explode inside. I just can’t stand to stay here, haunted by Joe or his memory. I have to get out.”
Minka couldn’t explain the pain that pressed too large on her heart, that constricted her body until she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She had loved Joe, even if he was a jerk and a loser. That was a good enough reason to leave. After all these years, that wasn’t the reason she hurt so bad. Sven and his floozy opened a gouge in her heart. Leaving was a done deal. Time to run. Minka felt claustrophobic just thinking of Sven.
“If you want, we’ll go in together and talk to the boss.”
“Thanks, Alice. I’m really sorry. I’m going crazy in this town,” Minka said.
Minka showered quickly. Her whole body felt like a bundle of nervous energy. She wanted to repack everything in the apartment and get out before Sven returned home. That jerk. It hurt. The night Joe died, she needed Sven, really needed him.
From the way he lingered that night, despite her assurances that she was fine, Minka expected him to come back the next morning, to drop in just to see if she was okay. Instead he took off to Miami to hook up. Angry tears gathered at the corner of Minka’s eyes.
With an angry growl, she stomped to her book shelf and grabbed the nearest box and stacked books inside. Sven had unpacked these. His hands had touched them. It wasn’t fair. Minka worked late into the night. Her apartment was half-packed when she crashed.
She snoozed the alarm three times before dragging herself up for work.
It was a strange day of disconnects and separation. After an hour-long talk with her boss, Minka packed up her desk. She drove home feeling out of sorts.
She was way too messed up for any kind of connection right now. Minka just needed to back off and sort things out. After killing her ex-boyfriend in her current boyfriend’s presence, what did she expect? What else could Sven do but leave town? After all, he lived across the landing from her. He could have planned his new girlfriend to answer the phone just so that he wouldn’t have to break it off with Minka.
He may have lied about his reasons for leaving town, but Minka decided that breaking up with his answering machine would tie up the last of her threads. Break up. She said the words in her mind with derision...as if they were together.
She felt herself catch at his voice, strong and steady on the answering machine. With false cheerfulness, she said, “Hey, Sven. I don’t blame you for wanting to back off. I’m leaving Spokane. I hope you have a wonderful life.”
Minka hung up the phone with a sense of loss and determination. She embarked in a whirlwind of activity, shutting off the phone, power, and electricity, hiring a U-Haul van. Smart, that month-to-month lease, but an extreme waste of money. She should have just gone home to begin with.
The hard call was to the police. She had the overwhelming fear that they would think she was running and arrest her. She gave the police her mother’s phone number in case they needed to follow up on the case. Not that they couldn’t find her, not if they were seriously looking.
If Minka was not completely relieved and happy as she drove out of town, well, that was to be expected. After all, she had given six years to Joe and his darkness and nearly gave herself to Sven. Still, the nagging doubt that there might have been something with Sven lingered in the back of her mind.
The morning she left, Sven left another message on her machine. He said, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ll be out of town a few more days. I’ve been thinking and there’s something more than just friendship between us. I hate being away from you.
The line was quiet for a second, as if Sven was waiting for Minka to pick up the phone. She could have. She was standing next to the phone waiting for the message to end.
Out of town. Minka thought, I’ll show you out of town. She would be picking up the U-Haul the following day. The next time Sven called, he would get a service disconnect message.
The day passed quickly, and Minka made great strides in packing up her stuff. She turned on the radio and tried to swallow the ache in her breast that said she was making a big mistake. Her whole life to this point had been one giant failure after another. She didn’t want to see the look on Sven’s face the next time they ran into each other, to hear him stammer and say that they weren’t right for each other while she remembered the perky woman answering the phone in his hotel.
Her stubborn resolve wavered when she turned in her keys to the landlord. The moving van was packed to the top. The apartment cleaned and abandoned. Five days and Sven was still out of town.
Feeling a little sick, Minka turned onto I-90. She turned up the radio, drowning out the little voice in her head that was warning her that running away from Sven was a terrible mistake. Not because he was like Joe and would follow her, but because he was a chance at happiness, and she was fleeing like a coward
.
Chance at happiness. Hah! He had his chance.
Wrapped in worried thoughts, Minka never noticed the black sedan following her.
Chapter 18
SVEN BOLTED OUT OF bed, sweat dripping down his face. In his dream, Minka stared at the ceiling with dead eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d had this dream, but it was the first time the dead girl had worn Minka’s face.
It had been a full week since Tom went missing. Sven dressed in khaki shorts and a fresh t-shirt. He paced the hotel, thinking of Minka. So far everything had gone wrong. The sphere was now in enemy hands, as was Tom. Bryce refused to move to a secure location, insisting that he would take classes at the University of Miami as a cover while searching for his dad. And to top it all off, Sven hadn’t heard from Minka in a week. He would call at a different time. The phone in the hotel room rang.
A husky voice breathed into the receiver, “I’ve got your girl. Great idea getting her out of town, but you were too late.”
“What are you talking about?” Sven thought of his dream. It made his stomach flip-flop.
“Minka Rook. I have her. Are you ready to talk?”
“Of course.” Sven reached to the table to grab the complimentary pad of paper and pen that the hotel provided.
“Get Drake and his team out of Miami. I don’t care how you do it, but get it done. When that happens, I’ll release your girl.”
“That’s not the most likely scenario. I’ll do what you ask and then you’ll kill her. I need some assurance.” Sven paced the tiny space like a tiger in a cage, trapped. His jaw was clenched and realizing this, he took a deep breath and tried to reach the cold calm needed to make the decisions that would save Minka’s life.
“Call Lee. Ask him if I keep my promises. I’ll give you fifteen minutes. If you don’t answer, Minka is dead. If you won’t do what we tell you, Minka is dead.”
Sven ground his teeth when the line went dead. This was why he kept a safe distance from colleagues, why he never asked anyone out on more than one date. This was the reason Sven was still single at twenty-nine. Fifteen minutes. Lee was the other missing link. Sven dragged his planner out of his carry-on bag and quickly dialed work. Lee should have arrived fifteen minutes before.
