by Abby Gordon
“I told them.” He nodded slowly at her stare. “There was nothing about restrictions in your file. All that was there was a picture, your title, address, and phone number. Frank said Vince gave it to him like that.” He pulled out a clean black shirt. “Could the mole be Vince? He’d certainly be able to redirect intel coming in about Polaris.”
She shook her head. That idea didn’t even bear thinking.
“No,” came her quiet answer. “I don’t think Vince would sell me out.”
“What about recently?” he asked, pulling on his clothes. “What have you seen recently? Anything that would make you suspect new activity?”
Next to him, fully aware of the last time they’d hurriedly dressed next to each other, Ginny pulled on the “agent” uniform—black pants, black tank top, then her shoulder holster and a loose black shirt. She sat down to pull on her socks and boots.
“Ginny?” he prompted.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “Not so much as a twitch. Certainly nothing that he was about to strike at the team that nearly got him a decade ago. I should have known about George and Sam within an hour of their deaths.” She yanked on the last boot and stomped on the floor. “Anything regarding Polaris comes straight to me.” She caught herself. “It was supposed to come to me. I should have known.” She pulled her brush out. “I don’t know how something like this could happen. Just two or more moles? It’s starting to look like the entire Agency conspired against us. I mean, I know ninety-five per cent of the men in the Agency have the same attitude as Al, but I can’t believe that chauvinism would cause all this. It has to have been something else.”
Scowling, Max shrugged into his holster.
“Ginny, I’m not sure I follow. You’re rambling faster than I can keep up. Fill me in.”
“Max, Al never liked me. God knows, Frank held me in contempt along with every other woman who dared become an operative. That attitude rubbed off on most the male operatives. That helped keep us apart.” She ran the brush through her hair and began braiding it. “And now,” she mused quietly, staring off across the room without really seeing the rumpled bed. “Now, Polaris suddenly surfaces. Two members of the team are dead, and my address is leaked.”
“Vince gave it to Frank. Frank told me. I told Al and Mark. But we were heading out to protect you!” he protested. Even as he frowned. Something wasn’t adding up right. “What the hell are we missing?”
“Why?” she whispered, securing the braid. “Why now?” She went to the bathroom and retrieved her toiletry bag. “What was your last mission?”
“A smuggling ring using a singles’ cruise as cover.”
“Drugs or weapons?”
“Drugs.”
With a grumpy snort, she tossed the bag into her suitcase. “No connection there,” she muttered.
“Connection,” he breathed, wishing he had her memory as he reviewed the conversation in Frank’s office. “Frank said that Analysis didn’t know Polaris was active again.”
“He got that right,” came another mutter. She went to the couch, started to sit down but began pacing instead. “Active. Smuggling rings. There are things I’ve heard, before the agents suddenly fell silent. Under the macho delusion that I shouldn’t worry about things they were doing. Men! So sure they were better than women at dealing with certain things.” She froze near the window and Max lost track of what she was talking about. “At least not Polaris per se.”
“Dammit,” she groaned. “I’m going to have to call.” She rested her forehead against the glass.
“Meaning?” frowned Max. “I can tell you’re thinking fast and furious. I can’t read minds. If I could, then I’d be only a step behind you instead of constantly racing to catch up.”
“I don’t like the way the pieces are coming together,” she muttered. “Not one bit. But there’s only one way to find out if what I’m thinking is the right conclusion. Or if there is more information out there that will change everything. And considering how things are going, I have a feeling there’s more out there.”
Frowning, she pulled out her own phone and punched up her contact list. All she had to do was hit the first number.
“Who are you…” Max started to ask, moving to stand closer. Who the hell was she calling in the middle of a highly classified mission?
“Galahad,” a deep voice rumbled so loudly at the other end that he could clearly hear the response.
“Galahad?” Max frowned. The voice was familiar and he tried to place it.
“Lady of the Lake,” she said briskly to the person who answered. “The Round Table is needed. I need Lancelot.”
In seconds another male voice came on.
“Lancelot. We’re in the middle of a briefing.”
Max shook his head, trying but failing to place the voices.
“Camelot was breached.” Max could see the way she braced herself. “The Grail has been taken.”
Max could hear the stream of obscenities from the male at the other end. Deducing that Charlie was the Grail, he fully concurred with the man’s assessment of the situation. He heard voices in the background. The man had said they were in the middle of a briefing. An agent? Who in the agency would she be calling when he was with her?
“When? Where? Are you all right?”
“Yesterday about three-thirty…”
“And you’re just now calling? Ginny! What the hell is going on? Where are you? I’ll…”
“I’m safe. Max is with me.”
The silence over the phone was palpable.
“What does he know?”
“He knows about Charlie. They both know. I don’t know who else does.”
The silence stretched again. Max’s body felt like it was in stasis, frozen. He knew this man. Knew the man who had answered. And the voices in the background had sounded familiar as well. He just couldn’t match them to faces.
“Give it to me straight.”
“Frank told Max that Polaris has resurfaced. George and Sam were reportedly killed two days ago. Frank told Max that Vince gave him my address. Max told Al and Mark.”
The vitriol that spewed out made Ginny blink and Max reach for the phone. Shaking her head, she held on tighter as he heard Galahad’s voice in the background. The other voices were lower and he couldn’t make out any words.
“Let me get this straight,” the man said slowly. “Frank says Vince gave him your address, which Frank then passed on to at least three people. Your cottage was attacked and Charlie was taken hostage. And you are now somewhere with Max. I get all that right?”
“Succinct as always.”
“Ginny, don’t be flippant with me. Let me think.”
She flinched. Max frowned, not liking the man’s attitude toward Ginny.
“Now, I’m figuring you trust Max.”
“Correct,” she nodded, darting a glance at Max’s glowering expression. “He might want to kill me sometimes, but he’s not going to let anyone else have the pleasure.”
A snort of laughter was the response. “He thinks he can get ahead of me in line?”
Max felt every alpha-male, politically incorrect nerve go completely on edge. He didn’t know who she was talking to and wasn’t sure he really cared. The other man was giving Ginny orders—which Max felt only he should do. And this other man was talking to her in a totally unacceptable manner.
“I would say he already is,” she replied quietly. “Completely and in every way. And has been the past ten years even if no one realized it.”
Ginny’s response putting Max ahead of whomever she was talking to was a large boost to his ego. Max wasn’t sure if he was ahead of Charlie, but he was certainly before the first person she’d called to inform about the attack…Max froze. Who the hell was she talking to?
“Is that so?” came the dismissive tone. “All right. Stay with Max. Don’t leave him even to go to the bathroom. I’ll do some checking on my end and contact you.”
Instinct told him that the men were ag
ents, agents he’d worked with at least once, and clearly they were people Ginny trusted. Max took a rare leap of faith and leaned forward. He whispered in her ear.
“Polaris is calling Vince’s line at eight.”
“I heard that. That means the Grail may make contact,” the man commented. “Guinevere, try to stay calm.”
“Understood,” she nodded, hanging up.
Gripping her shoulders with both hands, Max studied her.
“What the hell is going on? Who was that? He knew your real name. Who were the others? Are they agents?”
“They might be our only chance of surviving to get Charlie back,” she told him.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Max kept his eyes on her face. Did she not trust him to get Charlie back? They didn’t know who to trust in the agency and she had clearly called a team leader and told him. Had she put their son in even more danger?
“And that is?”
“Max, I trust you with my life. I trust you to get Charlie back. But I cannot tell you who that was. Not right now.” She bit her lower lip. “But I will. I promise,” she repeated softly. “It’s just…” She took a deep breath and exhaled with a whoosh. “I’m not sure which secrets belong to whom anymore.”
“We’ve got to be honest with each other…”
His cell phone rang and he yanked it from its case.
“What?” he snarled into it.
“Someone needs to take a happy pill,” Al snapped back. Max realized he’d hit the speakerphone button. “Get your ass down here already. Frank wants to see you.”
“We’re on our…”
“Didn’t you hear me the first time I called? He doesn’t want to see her. Just you.” There was a pause. “Shit. You’re pussy whipped. I don’t believe it.”
The words hung in the silent room and Ginny looked at him.
“Someone wants her dead. She’s not leaving my side until we have Charlie back and I have Polaris at my feet,” Max stated. “We’re on our way down.”
Ginny squared her shoulders. She might as well start following the coded directions. And pray like anything that it worked.
Max took her elbow and she shook him off.
Clearly puzzled, he looked at her.
“Ginny, this is no time to get temperamental on me.”
“Temperamental?” she echoed, anger snapping in her eyes. He had no idea who he was messing with! But he was about to find out. She just hoped that she didn’t scare him off completely. If her son’s life wasn’t at stake, she might have had fun with this after ten years of holding everything in. “Mister, you have no idea what temperamental is as far as I’m concerned. But you and everyone else is about to find out. I’m tired of being seen as a plaything or merely a statistic to keep the politically correct factions of the world happy.” Picking up her soft sided suitcase, she glared at him. “My son is in the hands of a monster and, whether you were part of it or not, you brought Polaris straight to us.”
“So I’m the enemy along with everyone else?” Max stared at her. “Ginny, I don’t see you as a plaything,” he said calmly. “Nor as a statistic. We were both used! Then and now. If there is strife between the two of us, Charlie doesn’t stand a chance! Now will you tell me what the hell is going on?”
Ginny stared at him. “Used,” she whispered.
“Used what?” he frowned. “Ginny?”
He could see in her eyes that her brain was racing in several different directions. That had happened ten years ago. Something he’d just said was vitally important. Several things. She’d worked through it and he’d split the team up. They’d damn near gotten Polaris then. And she had to sort it out. Now.
“Who used us ten years ago? Who’s using us now?” She raised serious, frightened eyes to him. “And why?”
“All right,” he said slowly. “Let’s get this out of the way. Even if Frank and Al have heart attacks.”
“Used, used,” she repeated.
Her chin lowered slightly as she considered the variables. He couldn’t stand the silence and searched his mind for things she kept going back to.
“What’s this obsession with your address?” he tossed out. “You act like…”
Her head came up sharply. “What did you say was on the paper with my address?”
“A picture from two months ago, title, and phone number.”
“What about Charlie?”
“No,” he shook his head. “Was there supposed to be?”
She nodded.
“Next of kin and additional notification information since he’s a minor were on the cleared version in the event of emergency.”
Max felt his blood run cold. “Would Vince and Frank have had access to it?”
“The complete file is in Vince’s office,” she nodded. “He probably wouldn’t have given Frank the entire file, but…”
“He knew about Charlie and odds are Frank did,” Max whispered. “They might not have known I was his father, but they knew about Charlie.”
Ginny shuddered. “You were sent to me, knowing it would put Charlie in danger,” she breathed, swaying. She didn’t know whom to blame. “One of them…”
“We’ll kill which ever needs to be later,” Max promised, wrapping an arm around her. “Right now, we get Charlie back.”
“So, were they using us as bait? Hoping to lure Polaris out in the open?” she mused. “But how would that fit with what happened ten years ago?”
“Or are they being used by someone else?” Max added, tucking her suitcase under his arm. He handed her Charlie’s backpack, picked up his, and put his arm around her again. “And that still doesn’t tell us why.”
“I feel like I should know,” she fretted as they left the room. “But I can’t weed it out from everything else.”
“It’ll come to you,” he assured her as they walked down the hall. “I just hope you figure it out before we kill Polaris.” Stumbling, she stared at him. He caught her and gave her a macabre smile before heading briskly to the stairs. As he held her upper left arm, she was forced to trot to keep up with him. “What? You think I’m going to let him live to come back after us? You think I’ll let him live after taking our son and putting you through hell? Not fucking likely.”
She swallowed. There was murder in his eyes. She’d seen it in agents’ eyes before, but never in Max’s.
“You’re scary sometimes. You know that, don’t you?” she whispered.
“You think that’s scary?” he echoed her tone from earlier. “Honey, you’ve never seen me pissed.”
“Great,” she breathed. “Just make sure I’m by your side when all hell breaks loose.”
“Every step of the way,” he nodded.
Our son. The words rang in her mind. Hope lifted its weary head in her heart. He didn’t want Polaris to come after them again. But was he protecting her and Charlie because he felt some sort of obligation or because he cared? Because he wanted them.
She couldn’t let herself think about that.
All that really mattered was Charlie.
Chapter Nine
Near the front door of the safehouse, Al was talking with Frank and saw them first. Scowling, he murmured to Frank who turned with his own scowl. Striding to meet the pair, with Al and two assistants trailing at his heels like puppies, Frank waved dismissively at Ginny.
“You can go back up to your room until we need you,” he told her in the same patronizing tone he had used the day before. “Max…”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Max interrupted him. Frank had short-term memory loss unless he wanted Ginny to kick his ass in front of more agents. Of course, the upside to that was more people would realize that she was more than capable of handling herself. Except they didn’t have time for a demonstration. “Ginny stays with me. That is non-negotiable.”
Nobody moved, except to turn and gawk at the scene. Mark and a woman approached and waited to Max and Ginny’s right.
“Max, I realize she might be a good screw, but…�
�� Frank started.
Calmly, Max put the suitcases down, reached out, and gripped Frank’s shirt, hauling him so the two men were nose to nose.
“Frank, you better pray that boy is unharmed when we find him. I’m considering this a continuation of my previous op, so I’m in charge.” Shoving the older, heavy set man away from him, Max glanced at Mark. “What do you have on the call?”
“Not much. It was made from a disposable cell phone. We’re tracking that down but I doubt if we’ll get much.”
Max nodded, turning to the woman next to Mark. “Nia?”
“Analysis hasn’t had any practical hard intel on Polaris for nearly two years.” Her dark brown eyes narrowed. “And I couldn’t find any details on the deaths of George and Sam.”
Ginny cocked a brow as she glanced at Max. He grunted as his hand went to her elbow again.
“All right then. Let’s head for the office.”
“Right,” Frank decided to assert himself. “Max, come with me so we can talk.”
“Frank. Listen carefully, because I’m only saying this one time. Ginny stays with me. Period. End of discussion. And we’re going in my car. Where’s Zach?”
“Getting your car,” Nia replied, her long black braid swishing between her shoulder blades as her head swiveled from Max to Frank.
Ginny’s eyes widened slightly. She looked at Max and he winked at her. Silent as Max guided her outside, she reflected on everything that had happened since he’d appeared in her doorway. Somewhere in everything that had been said was the key to figuring this all out, she told herself. Just one thread of thought and she could unravel it.
And then she would find her son.
Ginny hugged his pack to her. She had to have her son back. Safe and sound and antsy to get out and play baseball. Or trying to swipe a lick from the cookie dough without her seeing. Or simply turn to her for a hug as he dealt with the loss of his oldest friend. Del had been everything to Charlie. She closed her eyes. How on earth would Charlie deal with the information he’d been told just moments before the attack? Had he seen his parents laying on the floor as he’d been taken out? Or had he been unconscious? She didn’t know which would be better. If he’d seen them, he would know that they’d fought hard to protect him, or he might think they were dead.
