Fight Fire With Fire.

by Amy J. Fetzer

  “How did they find you?”

  He wasn’t talking. Ever. This bunch was the hired help and didn’t warrant a damn thing, but he’d been warned. His silent partner stated it obviously by delivering the stray cat he’d been feeding, dead and in a basket. It wasn’t the dead cat that got him, he could give a damn, or that he’d found him easily. But that the animal was severed into neat little pieces. Even the gray fur was combed. He got the message. He understood from the start that he might never meet the source of all his new money. But his partner’s intelligence was a worthy match, and he was intrigued enough to wait it out. He didn’t do five years in prison by losing his patience or wasting his time.

  The car rocked to the left as the driver took a corner too fast. Someone barked a command and it sounded like Afrikaans. It wasn’t important, just mental amusement as they carted him around. He shifted and his leg throbbed harder, pain reaching his hip. It stirred his loathing and he vowed to pay Donovan back in spades. With less effort than firing a damn gun, he thought, reaching with cuffed hands to touch the wound. The bandage was soaked. He needed medical attention, then realized he wouldn’t get a damn thing if he didn’t let these yokels know in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t make a move without him.

  He’d made sure of it.

  Riley’s muscles clamped as Safia maneuvered the bike, speeding between oncoming traffic, then through alleys. He wondered where she was going as she rode down a street, onto the sidewalk, then cut through yards and alleys. They popped out between buildings and around the traffic circle to the bridge. He tapped her, pointing. He could barely hear Sebastian on the radio, and when they skirted the building nearest the bridge, she braked.

  Riley hopped off the bike and ran toward the water, but he glimpsed the boater and flattened to the cement bridge support. The man aimed somewhere to his left, under the bridge. Riley fired three shots, forcing the shooter to duck and punching holes in the boat hull. Then a thip thip sound came from behind him, and the boater knocked backwards, bullets impacting his chest. It didn’t stop him. Kevlar, he realized as the man struggled to grab the rudder and fire. Riley popped in his last magazine, and Safia was beside him, the tip of her pistol barrel curling with smoke. When he stepped out to aim, she put her hand on his arm, pushing it down. He glared.

  “Don’t waste your ammo. He’s out of range.” The boater sped downriver.

  Riley rushed under the bridge. “Sebastian!”

  Within the shadows, he saw a lump on the ground and his heart skipped, thinking Sebastian was hit till he sat up. His face and throat were splattered with blood.

  “These people are too damn ready to die for the cause.” He rolled the body over.

  Safia stepped near and studied the face. “No clue,” she said.

  Riley eyed her. “But you’re not surprised.”

  “No. The boater was clean up.” She pulled out her cell phone and dialed, looking at the tall dark haired man as he stood. “You were lucky.”

  Sebastian swiped at the blood on his jaw and throat, and his gaze shifted to Riley. He inclined his head at the woman. “The cause of the crash?”

  Riley nodded. “The Company.”

  “Holy hell,” Sebastian muttered and eyeballed her with more detail.

  “What are you doing?” Riley asked her.

  She covered the phone. “Cleaning this up.” She paced for a few steps, and when he heard her speak rapid Malay, his brows shot up.

  She stopped short, her voice rising a couple octaves and her expression said she wasn’t getting the results she wanted. When she finished the call, she closed the phone and walked near. “Singapore police are notified of his location.” She flicked her hand toward the corpse.

  Riley scowled. “Was that wise?”

  “Got to give info to get it,” she said almost absently. “But we have a short window and we need to disappear. Now. All of us.”

  Riley’s cell vibrated, and he flipped it open. “Max has wheels. He’s on Wilson Road.”

  She looked at Sebastian as she swung onto her motorcycle. “Go to the next street, then left and keep walking,” she said. “He’ll be coming toward you. It’s the only paved road.” The sirens grew in number, the shrill screams coming closer. She gave Sebastian an address as she pulled on the helmet. “Riley. Come on, chop chop,” she said, tightening the chinstrap.

  But he didn’t. “Who has my package, Safia?”

  “Cale Barasa, an arms dealer.”

  “Shit,” Riley and Sebastian said at once.

  “An extremely slippery one, and I’ll get you what you need, I swear, but you do not want to spend a night in a Singapore jail.” Her friendship with the police would only take her so far. She turned over the engine.

  “We’re going to have a long talk tonight,” he said, climbing on behind her.

  “Sure, but let’s not have it in a cell.”

  Sebastian was already heading to the street, a wet trail behind him. Safia drove slowly up the incline. Tall buildings crowded the corner, traffic lights flashed and the congestion was more pedestrian than vehicles, but at least it was finally moving again. But so were the police; nearly a dozen uniformed officers directed traffic. Then a pair talking into radios headed toward them. She nodded imperceptibly to Sebastian, then rode in the other direction. Once they were clear of the congestion, she defied physics and took her crotch rocket to its limits.

  Riley peered over her shoulder at the dash of the motorcycle. Normally the dash was sparse, speedometers and gauges, but beneath the handlebars was a touch-sensitive flat screen lit up like jet controls and shielded by the windscreen. He suspected it was connected to the helmet, and he’d bet she had a night vision visor. She was certainly outfitted properly for spying, he thought as she angled in front of a three-story house and touched a combination on the dash. A slim door opened and she rode the bike inside a courtyard. Real estate like this was hard to come by this close to Singapore City and he could smell the water from here. She parked the bike and Riley stood, stretched and looked at the house.

  Three floors and weather beaten, it had the pagoda style of Asia, but that’s where the similarity ended. The house was on cinder block stilts, and the courtyard garden wall shielded the place from the street. Infrared and motion sensors were tucked around stone urns filled with tall wispy bamboo. Her helmet under her arm, Safia stood near a rain duct, her hand raised to hit some switch concealed behind it. The first gate closed, and another on the street side opened.

  He frowned.

  “Your buddies,” she said, and he heard the car roll to a stop. “Direct them in, will you?”

  Riley went to the entrance as Max drove into the enclosure. The motorized gate sealed them in. When the two climbed out of the boxy blue car, she faced them, looking them over.

  “Lo, but you’re a sad bunch. Come on. I think I can make this day end a little better.”

  They followed her around to the front door, yet when he expected another key lock, she just opened it. Inside, it looked like a normal home, wood floors in the foyer, staircase to the right, rooms flanking the entrance, furnished and clean.

  “This your place?” Riley said, glancing around.

  “I don’t stink that badly at design, thank you very much.” She walked down the hall and waited till they were beside her, then hit a switch. A door sealed them off so tightly Riley felt his ears pop. She let out a hard sigh, then turned down the hall, and walked further inside. She stopped to push her helmet onto an overhead shelf, then hung her jacket and sling bag on a line of silver hooks. She replaced her ear mic, curling the mic wire around her ear.

  “Do you ever disconnect?” Riley said.

  “Not when I’m expecting information. Besides, base is like my alter ego, just smarter.” She looked at the others, then held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Safia Troy.”

  “Troy?” Riley said. “I never knew and couldn’t find out.”

  “Those were my NOC days.”<
br />
  Non-official covert, he thought and wondered what she considered herself now. NOC’s worked alone, without any help, delivering information from undercover. It was a strange life, and passion and self-confidence were necessary, plus a certain thrill-junkie attitude. Teammate Killian Moore’s wife Alexa Gavlin had been a deep cover NOC. They were the diehard operatives. Alexa had been left to die and still finished her mission. Riley introduced his buddies.

  “Where’s the rest of Dragon One?”

  “Whoa, really good Intel.”

  She flashed a smile. “You’d be surprised.”

  “So we’re sharing? We’ve dealt with the Company before,” he said in a low tone. “I don’t trust them one bit.”

  She scoffed. “Neither do I.”

  His brows shot up.

  “That Fundraiser in Serbia wasn’t the first time the political agenda stepped on my toes.”

  “Don’t they always,” he said cryptically, then plucked a tiny pod from his ear, a less than half-inch mic protruding. It was flesh colored and visible only at an angle.

  She peered. “Gawd. You guys have better gadgets.”

  “One of them is in Jason Vaghn, 28, child prodigy and genius. Doctor Vaghn actually.” He wiggled his ear and pocketed the comm-link.

  “In? I saw you shoot his leg and butt.”

  “One was a bio-marker.” He showed her the small short gun that looked like a .357 magnum before pushing his pant leg back over it again. “It dissolves in seventy-two hours. Where he goes, we go.”

  “Excellent! If we can get one on Barasa . . .”

  Riley shook his head. “Only reason Vaghn doesn’t know it’s in there is that I shot him in the butt and it’s soft tissue.”

  “Bet that stung.” She grinned. “I’m trusting you to locate Barasa. I have a tag on the car, but he’s paranoid. It won’t be there long.” She looked at Sebastian, wrinkling her nose. “There’s a bedroom that way. Second on the right.” She pointed over her shoulder to the hall lined with doors. “You’ll find everything you need to change out of those wet clothes.”

  Before Sebastian headed that way, he paused to grip her arms and kiss her forehead. “Thank you, cheri. I’m itching all over and was trying to be polite and not scratch.”

  She blinked, stepping back from him and looked uncomfortable just then. “Just helping a fellow troublemaker,” she said uneasily.

  Max hadn’t spoken, watching her carefully. He handed Riley the flash drive, then shouldered off Vaghn’s backpack. “He’s got a handgun in there with some toys. I’ll take it apart when I get back. I’m going back for our gear,” he said gruffly. “If it’s still there.”

  Safia showed him how to get past the gates and Riley understood how much trust she was putting in Dragon One right now. Technically, she was breaking a lot of rules just by bringing them into a covert CIA station. He searched the pack, removing the gun, yet finding nothing unusual for a young man on the run.

  “He okay?” she said when Max had left.

  He unloaded the weapon. “He’s as ticked off as I am that we don’t have Vaghn on a plane to the U.S. right now.”

  “I’m sorry, really.” She met his gaze. “I take full blame for that. I’ll pay for the truck too.”

  Laying the weapon aside, he hooked the backpack alongside her jacket. “Then I’ll refrain from rehashing it again.” He had to admire her candor.

  “I’m trying to make up for it.” She threw her hands wide to encase the house.

  “But you are going to do everything in your power to get him back, aren’t you?”

  “You can get him back right now.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Really?” She folded her arms and cocked her hip. “Then what’s it worth to you?”

  Hagia Irene

  Istanbul, Turkey

  He passed through the pale blue door and into the monument of Byzantine architecture, his steps echoing enough to make him slow down as he walked beneath the arches. With his partner, he meandered with the tourists, gradually making their way past the scaffolding around a center statue. Restoration was constant, and people circled the workers to watch. Hagia Irene had been a church, a mosque, and now a museum at closing time.

  Hooking the leather pack on his shoulder, they followed instructions and went to the west wall mosaic under restoration. A young woman knelt with a tool, and scraped away centuries of Muslim plaster, revealing the intricate mosaic of Jesus beneath.

  He ignored the cobalt blue eyes staring at him with accusation and waited.

  All communication was through computer or cell phone text. If the financier wanted to remain an entity, he was all for it. As long as he was paid the balance, the guy could dance in the streets in his skivvies for all he cared.

  “Don’t turn around,” he heard and glanced at his partner in surprise. The voice was female, accented.

  “You have something to say?” When she didn’t respond he started to turn, then heard what he needed.

  “Daedalus.”

  He slid the pack off his shoulder, and held it at his side by the strap, then felt a small hand close over his and pull the backpack away. He was glad to be rid of it. A moment later, she pushed a broader strap into his hand. He gripped it, the contents much heavier than the first. He glanced at his partner and nodded.

  “Join the tour and leave slowly. Don’t turn around. Get in your vehicle. Wait five minutes more, then leave.”

  He obeyed, bringing the black leather pack up and unzipping it. American bills bound with paper bands filled it. He tipped it enough to show his partner. Smiling, he closed it and slung the pack, keeping an even pace with tourists circling the mosque to the blue door. He didn’t dare glance behind. The operation had gone exactly as planned, a first for him. Once outside, they crossed the parking lot and got into the rental car. He let out a breath, handing over the pack.

  “So . . . this is what two million feels like? Do I count it?”

  He lit a smoke. “If it makes you happy,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror, then the sides before he checked his watch. He marked the five minutes till they could get the hell gone. He wouldn’t screw with perfection, even this late. It’d sour, he thought and kept his attention on the exits.

  The setting sun blistered the three-story dome as tourists filed out and he kept his eye out for the pack. No less than four people had similar bags, not one of them was female.

  This entire operation went off flawlessly, and their employer had fulfilled their end of the bargain. An old part of him was repulsed by their methods, but money always soothed that niggle of conscience. Tourists strolled past to their cars, and he caught a whiff of a fragrance, something flowery. He studied the people, a family of five, a small child with braided hair skipping on ahead. Two women, sisters, he decided, checked their guidebooks, stopped to read from one to speak to the attendant, then clomped by in their Birkenstocks and fanny packs. Bet they have a few cats, too.

  He glanced at his partner, frowning. He had his head back and mouth open, sleeping. They’d been traveling fast for days till now. Then he realized his chest wasn’t moving. He grabbed his face, turning his head and saw the dart in his throat.

  A breath later, he felt the prick.

  The bastards was his last thought.

  Seven

  Riley didn’t like the sound of that. “Just what do you mean?”

  “What are you willing to do to get this guy?”

  He scowled. “Anything.”

  She gave a short laugh. “God, those are loaded words. Don’t agree so fast. I’m talking about leaving Vaghn where he is and giving Barasa some rope to learn what they’re selling and to whom.” She dropped in a club chair and worked off her boots, then neatly set them aside, and stood. “Your package is the hot property of the day and we need to know exactly why.”

  “He’s a weapons designer and not limited to his own imagination,” he said, conceding that he couldn’t go in there with gu
ns blazing and take Vaghn back. Certainly not without a plan. Returning him to US custody and on a plane stateside was still the assignment, but Safia didn’t know he’d never give up. He wasn’t ready to trust her, and had to see how far she’d let him press her with information, because she clearly had an agenda for Barasa. His gaze followed her as she went to the wall and pulled a metal frame out a few inches. On the box frame was a padded half circle, centered and thick, but before he realized what it was, she bent, head down and kicked up into a handstand.

  “How very Zen,” he said.

  “It helps when I’ve been on that motorcycle too long. My hips and butt are numb.”

  He tipped his head to look at her and said, “Need a volunteer to put the feeling back?”

  She laughed and almost toppled out of her stand. “What I really need is your Intel on Vaghn,” she said. “I want to know how Barasa found him.”

  “And I need access to your satellite communications—to start.”

  She lowered one leg at a time, then came up right slowly and stayed on her knees for a second. “I’m okay with that. You have the clearance, but it might take a bit to convince Base. She’s gotta territorial thing.” She stretched on the floor, then stood. Her skin was flushed, brightening her whiskey-colored eyes.

  He pointed to her ear mic. “Can you turn that off?”

  That confused Safia. “Of course, why?” She pulled out the mic and thumbnailed the tiny switch.

  “I didn’t want Base to hear you moan.”

  She blinked. “Excuse me?”

  Then she didn’t need an explanation. He was there, trapping her against him and laying his mouth over hers. Oh my God, he was good at this. She braced her hands on his shoulders and soaked in the moment for what it was; a man kissing her for no other reason than he needed to, right then. Antonio had nothing on him. Every inch of her simmered with sensations she hadn’t felt in a long time. The reasons why made her push out of his arms.

  “Stop doing that. It’s unprofessional,” she said, giving him a shove yet admitted she’d walked right into that.

  “Really? You taste better than I recall.”