Catalyst: Flashpoint #2

by Grant, Rachel

  Brie managed to break the tape and rid herself of the Sig, then she attempted to crawl to Bastian, but pain overwhelmed her.

  June reached her side. “They came to our village.”

  Brie gasped against the pain. “Did they hurt you? Is everyone okay?”

  The woman nodded. “Kamal was hurt, but he will recover. We had to tell them where you are. I took Kamal’s gun and followed. I was only one against six. I couldn’t take them all.”

  Bastian dropped to Brie’s other side, setting his pack down next to her. Blood dripped down his temple. “There were six men, total?” he asked as he pulled out his first aid kit.

  “Yes. Six. I saw where they hid. Waited. Wanted to shoot the one before he hit you, but you were in the way.”

  “You saved us both,” Bastian said. “Thank you.”

  She spat toward the body lying by the hut opening. “These men are worse than the soldiers who steal and rape. From what they said, I think the black men worked for General Lawiri. I don’t know who the white man worked for.”

  Bastian probed at Brie’s wound, and her vision dimmed. “Bullet’s still in there.”

  “Can you remove it?” she asked.

  “I’m not a medic. I’ve been trained, but…I’m sorry, Brie, but this is going to hurt like hell.”

  “We have alcohol in our village,” June offered. “Just for this kind of thing.”

  “No. No alcohol.” She gasped as Bastian hit a shattered nerve.

  “It might help, Brie.”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks from the intensity of the pain, but she couldn’t open that door. She knew herself. Knew her triggers. “No. I can’t.” She gripped his hand. “And Bastian—if we’re rescued, and medics take over, no opiates. Promise me. No opiates.”

  He nodded and leaned down and kissed her. Blood from his temple dripped onto her cheek. “I promise.”

  June took up Bastian’s M4 and acted as guard as Bastian performed the surgery in the middle of the abandoned village.

  Fortunately for Brie, she passed out from the pain before the forceps grasped the bullet.

  Oh dark thirty, and Bastian paced in front of the hut where Brie lay sleeping. He’d wanted to leave the village but had no way to move her that didn’t involve carrying her for miles, and still had hope his team would show up any time now. Abandoning the village at this point could be the biggest mistake he made during an op full of epic fuckups.

  June had returned to her village to see to her family. He was alone as he paced in front of the hut, going over every minute of the last seven days in his mind as he tried to figure out what he could have done differently.

  His brain was fuzzy. He was fairly certain he had a concussion, but there was nothing he could do about that.

  Six men were dead. Hired help of an exiled general? He hoped to pass that theory on to Savvy, but right now he wobbled on his feet and his vision blurred. He was chilled to the bone on the hot night, and wanted to crawl into bed with Brie to get warm. He must have a fever.

  Fuck. That wasn’t good.

  The whirr of a helicopter sounded in the distance. He turned toward the noise and rocked on his feet at the sudden movement.

  In spite of his disoriented mind, his hope lifted. He knew that sound. Stealth Blackhawk.

  His team.

  He stood his ground, in front of the hut, as the hawk passed overhead, kicking up mud and debris.

  Next thing he knew, he was looking up into Goldberg’s face. He must’ve blacked out?

  Goldberg was the team medic. Bastian cracked a smile. At least, he hoped it was a smile. “About time you got here.”

  “Shit, Bas, you scared the hell out of us.” This from Cal, who also hovered above.

  He turned to Goldberg. “Forget about me. Brie. Shot. Check on her.”

  “Washington is taking care of her,” Goldberg said, referring to the team’s other medic.

  Bastian gripped his arm. “Tell him, no opiates. She can’t have opiates.” Then he slipped into darkness.

  19

  Bastian grinned at the three men who filled his small room in the aircraft carrier’s medical facility. “How the hell did you convince Captain Oswald to authorize this visit?” he asked Cal, Pax, and Espi.

  “We told him we would do a rundown of every screwup you made on the mission,” Espi said with a wink.

  Bastian grimaced but still managed a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ve already compiled that list.”

  Cal dropped into the visitor’s chair at his side. “Don’t be hard on yourself, Bas. The mission was fucked up from the moment she was taken to that market. I refuse to feel guilty for saving the kids.”

  It was true that not rescuing the kids was pretty much the only thing they could have done differently. Well, he also could have not been engaged in a make-out session with Brie while six men took up positions around their camp, but Cal didn’t know about that fuckup. And the truth was, that had likely saved their asses, so he refused to feel guilty for that one.

  Pax dropped a duffel bag at the foot of his hospital bed. “Rumor has it you’re going to be here for a few more days, so I grabbed your phone and a few other personal belongings we recovered from the hut.”

  “Thanks, man.” He and Brie had been halfway through a Karen Rose thriller he’d had on his phone—by tacit agreement, they’d stopped reading aloud before they reached the sex scene—and it looked like he’d have plenty of reading time while he was stuck here.

  A nice guy would give the phone with unfinished book to Brie, but he hadn’t seen her since they’d arrived on the USS Dahlgren three days ago. She’d been confined to her bed with her leg injury, and he…he hadn’t gone to see her because he was a chickenshit.

  They were back in the real world now—or as real as it got on a Navy aircraft carrier—and soon she would go back to the US and he would return to Camp Citron. There was no place for her in his world, and vice versa.

  He couldn’t even begin to imagine what his parents would think of her. Not that that mattered, because he didn’t do relationships.

  “So, we hear your brains were scrambled by mercs,” Espi said with a grin. “Cheap-ass mercenaries? My hero worship of you is wavering, Chief.”

  “They were badass, probably superhuman,” Bastian said. “I think Marvel is going to make them villains in the next Captain America movie. And there were at least two dozen of them.”

  “Three dozen,” said a sexy, sweet voice he hadn’t heard in days.

  Bastian’s gaze swung to the open door, and there was Brie, leaning on a cane. A real one, not the one he’d carved out of a branch eight days ago.

  Holy fuck, but she was beautiful, even battered and wearing a garment that would steal another person’s dignity. On her, the hospital gown looked like a fashion choice. She’d donned a second gown, wearing it like a robe over the first and covering the open backside. She’d cinched the waist with a strip of gauze, which she’d tied in a big, flowery bow with at least half a dozen loops.

  Medical ward chic.

  She wasn’t Oil Company Barbie. She was Patient Barbie, and she made it look good, like being stuck in the medical ward on a Navy vessel was a desirable thing.

  “Or at least, that’s what I’ll tell everyone, for the right price,” she added with a slight smile, her confidence seeming to falter when she met his gaze.

  She probably wondered why the hell he hadn’t visited her. He smiled, covering the ache in his chest where his heart should be. He wasn’t entirely sure he could answer that question himself.

  “Brie, you’re just in time to meet a few of the guys on my team.”

  He introduced his friends, who attempted to convince her to stay, but she refused. “I don’t want to impose on your visit. The doc wanted me to start exercising my leg, and I heard your voice. Glad to see you’re okay, I was worried.” And then she left, moving fast enough to give him hope her injury was healing quickly.

  “What the fuck, Bas? You haven’t se
en her? It’s been three days.” Cal’s face was fierce. Angry. Pax mirrored the expression.

  Espi’s gaze was still fixed on the hallway where she’d hobbled away. “Damn, I didn’t know a hospital gown could look so…hot.”

  “Come closer and say that,” Bastian said, his fist clenched.

  Pax had the nerve to laugh.

  Then Espi flashed a grin.

  Ahhh fuck. He was being taught a lesson.

  Assholes.

  But then, he had it coming. He’d been far worse with Morgan, Pax’s girlfriend. He cleared his throat. “Message received. I’m a bastard.”

  Espi turned to him. “She’s pretty, but I was more interested in your reaction. Why the hell are you playing dumbass games?”

  “What happened in South Sudan?” Pax asked.

  Bastian closed his eyes and willed his visitors to leave. Why had he been happy to see them? “Nothing.”

  Cal laughed. “You are so full of shit.”

  “You could do worse than banging an heiress,” Espi said with a laugh. “No one would blame you.”

  “Fuck all y’all. I was on duty. We didn’t screw.”

  “Ahh. So that’s the problem,” Pax said. “You aren’t on duty now. You must’ve been hit extra hard if you’re ignoring this opportunity. Maybe we should take a look at your X-rays.”

  “Captain Oswald is right, you do gossip like teenage girls.” But he was laughing. Shit. He’d missed these guys and was glad everyone on his team had returned to Camp Citron without injury. They’d freed the hostages, rescued Brie, saved a few dozen children from slavery, all without embroiling the US in South Sudan’s civil war.

  By definition, it was a successful mission.

  But it didn’t feel like a success.

  Brie had been shot, and it was his fault they’d even been there. If he’d pulled over before the road disappeared. If he hadn’t lost the signal panels, if he hadn’t lost the radio, none of that would have happened.

  “You going to Rome with Morgan?” he asked Pax.

  “No. Missed the window. She’s coming here for a few days before heading back to the US. She needs to confer with her crew anyway and check a few new sites they found in the survey corridor.”

  Their deployment had been extended by a few weeks to make up for lost training time after Morgan had been abducted, and now they’d lost another week. It was likely more time would be added. Their trainees weren’t ready for prime time, and another team wasn’t scheduled to arrive until late June. “I’m sorry, man,” Bastian said.

  What else could he say?

  Pax shrugged. “Saving the kids was more important.”

  They all nodded. Thinking about the market still felt surreal. He’d been so focused on Brie, he’d never really had a chance to process it. He’d seen some bad shit as a soldier, but the kids in the slave market ranked up there with the worst atrocities.

  “Chief Ford, this appears to be a bad time.” A woman’s voice drew his attention. His gaze—along with the gazes of the three other men—swung to the open doorway.

  Savannah James.

  “Sav,” Pax said, “we were just leaving. He’s all yours.”

  Savvy’s gaze flicked to Cal and then back to Pax so fast, Bastian wouldn’t have noticed except he’d been looking for it. There was tension between those two, and Bastian had never been able to tell if it was the good kind or not.

  Were they involved, or just circling like sharks, waiting for the other to break?

  Either way, neither the CIA operator nor the soldier was happy with whatever it was that set them both on edge when they neared each other.

  They should probably just screw and get it out of their systems, but he understood Cal’s reluctance. Spooks were cold and calculating. That Savvy was probably Special Activities Division only made her more frightening. Never trust a person whose job title included the acronym SAD.

  Pax and Espi said their goodbyes and filed out of the room. Cal stayed rooted to his spot next to Bastian’s bed. He crossed his arms. “Where are the children?” he asked.

  “That’s classified, Sergeant Callahan.”

  “Considering my team got those kids out of the hellhole, you can make an exception.”

  She crossed the small space and ran a finger down Cal’s chest, lowering her voice to a whisper. “It doesn’t work that way, Cal. You know that.”

  “You two wanna be alone?” Bastian asked. “I mean, it’s my hospital room, but I can drag myself out of bed and leave you.”

  Cal stood there, holding her gaze for several beats past normal. Finally, he said, “Get better, Bas,” then stepped out of the room.

  Yeah, those two needed to fuck. Sooner rather than later.

  Savvy closed the door and faced him. “I want a full report,” she said, dropping into the visitor’s chair.

  “I already debriefed with SOCOM.”

  She shrugged. “Pretend they didn’t share it with me.”

  “Make them give it to you. My head hurts, and I’m sick of going over the details.”

  “But I want to hear it all from you. The layout of the market, who was there, everything.”

  “There isn’t much to tell. I was focused on Brie. My team can tell you more about the market.”

  She leaned forward. “But that’s the thing. Brie is who I want to know about most of all. She’s the key to this fiasco. You’ve just spent a week cozying up to a woman who’s ninety percent porcupine, and yet you didn’t get jabbed. My guess is you know her better than most men. Her coworkers, Ezra and Alan, were useless. They didn’t even know she was a Prime.”

  “Ask her,” Bastian said. Savvy’s take on Brie surprised him. Porcupine? She was anything but.

  “I want the stories that are buried. The ones about her brothers. She never talks about Rafe and Jeff Junior, but I think she’ll talk to you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “She will.”

  “Why would you believe that?”

  “You make her feel safe.”

  “She was shot while she was with me. I doubt she’ll ever feel safe around me again,” Bastian said.

  “Wrong. It’s a different kind of safe. She can be herself with you—both the Prime because you know about that part of her, and the Stewart. She wants to screw you and needs someone to confide in. Whatever happened with her family was bad. She has it locked down tight and doesn’t see the connection to South Sudan. The Russian merc mentioned the modeling she did when she was thirteen and implied his boss has been after her for some time. I think she knows who he is but doesn’t realize it.”

  “You need to ask her. Not me.”

  “I have asked her. She said there were a lot of creeps who mailed her and stalked her when she was thirteen. Too many to begin to guess who it could be. But given everything else, I think this was someone close to the family. Otherwise, how did he find her?”

  Bastian had been eleven when the cosmetic ads had run and had paid zero attention at the time. When he looked up Princess Prime nearly six weeks ago, he’d seen references to the ads, but because they’d been banned in the US, he hadn’t crossed any firewalls for a refresher course.

  “What’s the deal with the ads? I don’t remember them.”

  “The photos were borderline child pornography. She was made up to look like a sex kitten and given suggestive items like a popsicle to suck on. In one, she wore nothing but a towel, and you could see side boob and bare back, all the way down to the crack in her ass as she looked over her shoulder at the camera, her expression blatantly seductive.”

  Bastian grimaced. Brie had been a virgin then, so the photographer must’ve coaxed those looks out of her. Why the hell did her parents allow the shoot? And why hadn’t they stopped the release of the images?

  “I’ve asked Brie about the photo shoot and fallout at length. She regrets it, naturally. It was a lark for her. She did it to please her mom, who’d been a model prior to marrying Jeff Senior in the early eighties. It wasn’
t in the public documents related to the divorce, but Brie said she learned later the photographer was her mother’s lover. Which is pretty sick when you think about it. The guy was banging the mother, but from the photos, it was clear he wanted the daughter.”

  “What happened to the photographer?”

  “He’d done a series of ads for the same cosmetic company—all with underage girls. Brie’s were the most explicit, but the others weren’t much better. After the ads were banned, police got a warrant and raided his studio, where they found images that weren’t borderline but full-on child porn. He died weeks before his trial was set to begin. Poisoned by a toxin that was never identified. Probably a Russian concoction—the photographer was Russian.”

  “Is there a connection between the Russian photographer and the Russian oil company?” The man Brie had seen in the market had worked for Prime Energy, but now he worked for Druneft. It was the only link that jumped out so far, but it was weak at best.

  “None that I’ve uncovered, but the man died in the late nineties. Brie’s maternal grandmother is Ukrainian, and Tatiana visited both Ukraine and Russia often after the Soviet Union broke up. She probably met the photographer on one of those trips. He moved to the US about a year before he photographed Brie.”

  Her story about losing her virginity had stuck with him, but this showed it wasn’t just the men in Brie’s life who were shits. Her mom hadn’t protected her either. “Her mother passed away a few years ago, right?”

  “Yes. Breast cancer.”

  “Were they close? Brie and her mother?”

  “I have no idea. It’s one of the things I want you to find out.”

  “Why the hell does this matter?” he asked.

  “Because Brie is the catalyst for what happened in South Sudan.”

  The idea had crossed his mind too, but Savvy sounded certain. “Why do you think that?”

  “She saw a man from Druneft—who used to work for her father—and a man who might be one of exiled General Lawiri’s bodyguards in that market. If that indicates an alliance between Erfan Lawiri and the owner of Druneft, Nikolai Drugov, then we’ve got a serious problem. Brie is the connection between all these elements, and I don’t believe it was a mistake she ended up in that market. If either Lawiri or Drugov is running that market, why were they so determined to capture and sell her?