Chasing the Captain

by Terry Shepherd

  “Oh no, you don’t, Michael. You, sir, have not been very helpful so far. Your colleagues almost got Ali killed. And besides, I have my own flat.”

  “Not tonight, you don’t. Alexandra and Liyanna stayed at the hospital just long enough to get a pint of blood each and a patch. They checked themselves out and are healing at Lee’s place.”

  “‘Healing,’ eh?”

  Michael held out a bent elbow, his escort pose.

  “I think you could benefit from some healing, too.”

  Jess sniffed and took the arm. But she was still mad at him.

  “We will not play cat and mouse like you did in Arizona, big boy. You tell me everything, or I will continue to cause trouble.”

  The subtext was clear. Michael was genuinely glad Jess was alive. And both were so physically hot for each other that if they didn’t find a quiet bed soon, Jess reckoned she would have her way with him in the parking lot.

  Michael tried to stay in character. The two were standing by his vehicle now. It was dark, and the cops were out of sight behind it. “You’re sexy when you play tough,” he said.

  “One of those guys had my father killed. I’m not giving up until he pays for that. I’m not fucking around, Michael.”

  “You will be soon,” he whispered.

  Then Michael Wright and Jessica Ramirez kissed like two horny teenagers, about to lose their virginity after the high school prom.

  53

  Ali and Lee

  By all rights, Lee and Ali should have both spent the night in hospital. The surgeons said they were lucky that the hollow point rounds didn’t do more damage. But Liyanna Evans learned that Alexandra Clark played by a different set of rules.

  “I’m not spending my first night in London in a hospital bed,” she barked.

  A profane stream of consciousness ultimately sprung them. The docs shrugged, pressed release forms in Lee’s and Ali’s hands along with bottles of narcotics, and sent them home.

  A copper gave the two women a ride. They sat in the back seat like a pair of criminals, eyeing each other in silence, their gazes speaking volumes.

  Lee was never a believer in love at first sight. But whatever magic Ali was exuding as she was bitching out the boys at the airport was unraveling. When Lee and Ali found that room where Mrs. Culpado and Jessica were being held, the adrenaline addiction they shared was a powerful aphrodisiac. Years of training kicked in. The two were in the zone. Ali was suddenly more attractive and desirable than Lee had ever imagined. The danger and the proximity of instant death was an incredible turn-on.

  Now they were standing in the doorway at Lee’s place. Ali wasn’t wearing any cologne. But her scent was irresistible. That athletic body was delectable. And the sexual tension between the two was so magnetic, they could both feel it pulling them toward one another.

  “So, this is what you guys call ‘a flat,’” Ali murmured as they entered. “You have good taste.”

  Ali scanned the layout with a practiced eye, commenting on the little things others missed, the invisible signs that pointed the way to Lee’s sexual preference.

  Ali noticed the couch, still covered with ruffled blankets where Jessica had slept.

  “And this is how you entertain out-of-town guests?” she said.

  Lee nodded toward her bedroom. “Good friends join me in there.”

  Ali unbuttoned her shirt, letting it drift to the floor. She pulled the sports bra beneath it up over her head, cursing as she agitated the bandages on her shoulder. She raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms to highlight her gifts. “How good a friend am I?”

  The wound in Liyanna Evans’ left leg throbbed. She popped a Percocet and followed suit.

  There is that moment when you know you’ve found the one when you’ve both revealed everything, and the thunderbolt hits you between the eyes. Lee was there right now. The pain vanished. The surrounding room drifted out of focus. She felt the lightning strike. Jessica had told her there was someone she needed to meet. Now Lee knew who and why.

  “Follow me,” she said in her sexiest voice, “and I’ll show you how good a friend you are.”

  There was a soft buzz emanating from the cell phone in Ali’s pants pocket.

  “Do you need to answer that?”

  Ali began unhooking Lee’s belt. “It can wait.”

  54

  At The Hotel

  Michael did it again. Jess thought that government guys booking expensive hotel rooms with panoramic views should annoy every taxpayer.

  The two behaved as they walked through the lobby. He was all over her in the elevator. And the minute the door to his suite clicked shut, Jess was all over him.

  Perhaps both underestimated the trauma they still had not processed from chasing Vega. Michael had asked Jess to marry him in that Phoenix hospital after nearly dying. And Jess didn’t even respond. She owed him an explanation. She owed him her life. But there was no way Jess was going to tell him.

  Michael tried being a good boy afterward, and Jess was suddenly too busy burying her father and helping Mamacita and her sister find a new place to live. Michael only inhabited the corners of her subconscious.

  She thought about their night of passion in Washington and the beautiful necklace that appeared at the dinner table. She shouldn’t have accepted it. Things were becoming more complicated by the moment. Jess needed no more complications now.

  But seeing Michael’s face at the base of the London Eye triggered Jess. Perhaps the proximity of death burned away any remaining shields that protected them from the raw, erupting passion they now felt.

  Where Jess got the energy after her experiences over the prior forty-eight hours was a mystery. But it wasn’t one she cared about resolving.

  She started negotiating the minute she had him naked. They argued with an intensity that matched their lovemaking.

  Jess had Michael pinned down on the huge king-size bed. She wanted to control every dimension of this experience. “You know I’m going after those bastards.”

  Michael responded in perfect time with her moves. It was pure heaven. “Don’t do this, Jess. This is the second time I’ve almost lost you. I’m not losing you again.”

  She broke a passionate kiss just long enough to chide her lover. “The man in that helicopter did not murder your father.”

  Michael tilted Jess’s head, exposing a delectable neck. “My father got shot when I was in high school. Gang members.” He was playing for her sympathy.

  “And what did you do?” She whispered the words as if she were a dominatrix, a command dripping with desire.

  Michael snarled as he bit her neck. “I tracked each one down, beat the shit out of them, and dragged their bloody bodies to the precinct. They are all doing life now.”

  That aroused Jess even more. She moaned, instantly angry with herself for showing the emotion. “Then you know how I feel,” she growled. “And you’ve described the minimum of what I’m going to do to Crawford and The Captain when I find them.”

  Jess’s anger increased her rhythm. Michael kept up. He was turning out to be a better lover than he was in Arizona. Jess wondered if he had been practicing with someone else.

  “The word is your Russian blew the country for Moscow,” Michael panted, “and took Crawford with him.”

  Jess took his face in her hands and devoured his mouth. “Then I know exactly where I’m going next.”

  Michael must have felt that he needed control. He rolled Jess onto her back and turned up the intensity.

  He was trying to distract her. It wouldn’t work.

  Michael’s kisses began a downward path toward Jess’s chest. “When the president discovered I knew you, the director himself put me in the back seat of a fighter jet to get here fast. My sole mission is to keep you out of the game so that clearer heads can manage this. It’s way bigger than both of us, Jess.”

  Jess thrust Michael onto his back again. “Do you always talk this much? You are diminishing my sex drive. Keep argui
ng and I’ll leave you forever.”

  They both knew that Jess was lying.

  Michael grabbed Jess’s hips, increasing her grind. “Sometimes we have to let other people do their jobs, Jessica. When it gets personal, we become vulnerable.”

  He was right, but Jess didn’t care. She was going.

  “So how do I get to Moscow? Is there still an Orient Express?”

  “Jessica!” Now he was moaning. Was he frustrated with Jess or just simply as close to losing total control as she was? “Isn’t there anything I can do to calm you down about this, baby?”

  Baby? When did I become his baby?

  I don’t think so.

  “You need to learn when you’ve lost an argument,” Jess said as their heart rates crossed one hundred and thirty beats a minute. “And you’ve lost this one.”

  That was when they both burst. Jess and Michael froze, two statues at the summit. Below the surface, it felt like an earthquake.

  This was exactly like the graphic love stories Jess’s grandmother used to read aloud to her in Spanish when she was in high school: Fireworks, “The Rockets’ Red Glare,” the most intense and satisfying culmination of her life.

  Michael groaned. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. “I love you, Jess.”

  Victory. Jess knew she had won.

  And so went the night.

  Jess and Michael made love with the desperate intensity of two people who thought that this moment together might be their last. It was a swirling tornado of insatiable, frantic lust, wrapped in a genuine mutual affection that neither could now deny.

  When both were finally spent, Jess lay atop her man’s panting body, her head resting on palms, elbows pinning Michael’s shoulders to the mattress.

  Michael gasped for breath like a marathoner at the finish line. Jess wrapped a hand around the base of his chin and turned his face so she could look directly into his devastating eyes.

  “So, are you gonna help me, or what, cowboy?”

  55

  Andy in Trouble

  A dull ache in Ali’s shoulder woke her up. Bright sunlight filtered through Lee’s curtains. She could hear the sounds of morning traffic building on the street below.

  Lee must have reloaded on the Narco. She slept peacefully, spooned against Ali’s back. Strong arms wrapped around Ali’s waist. Lee’s head rested on Ali’s good shoulder.

  The last twelve hours were among the most exquisite she had ever experienced.

  Things had to go downhill from here.

  Ali’s phone vibrated on the nightstand. It was her Proton Mail account. Andy Milluzzi’s icon flashed in the inbox.

  Officer Clark,

  You were right about the other interested parties. We had a visit from their representatives tonight at the lab. Twelve of them for the six of us. We all got handcuffed, and they tore the place apart. There were warrants for all our gear, the servers, our backpacks, our phones, keys to our apartments, the works.

  They herded us into several black, unmarked SUVs. The radios gave them away. Feds, probably the NSA guys you warned me about.

  Before they could get my cell, I hit the speed dial text number you gave me to call if we had any trouble. We had a bit of luck. I guess the only place they could book us was at police headquarters.

  Attorney Hammersmith was waiting. He received the message just like you said he would and talked his way into getting me alone for a few moments before it was my turn with the fingerprints and cameraman. Mr. Hammersmith let me use his phone to send this to you.

  If I’m not released by midnight, a cron job on the cloud server will dump all our stuff into your secure folder. We were about done anyway. It is interesting.

  I’m not sure what happens next to us. But thank you for another fun project.

  I think you’ll be pleased with our results.

  Best,

  Andy

  Good old Andy. The shit storm comes down on him, and he’s as cool as a cucumber. Attorney Hammersmith would have his work cut out for him. But Ali’s favorite public defender knew people. She hoped her nerds would survive the adventure with few lasting side effects and some fun stories to tell.

  Ali slid out from under Lee’s embrace. Her laptop was charged up. She had some reading to do.

  56

  Headquarters—British Secret Intelligence Services / MI6—London

  “Absolutely not.” Commander Anastos was livid.

  “This is a huge operation involving a half dozen different governments. It’s been years in the making, costing millions of pounds. No college town copper is going to inject a personal vendetta into the mix.”

  Michael slid his tongue between his teeth and the inside of his lower lip. That was how Jess knew his brain was engaged.

  “Detective Ramirez is the only one who can point out Crawford on sight and one of the few who has seen The Captain up close. Yes, there is a personal dimension to this, but I can vouch for her ability to compartmentalize that. She can be as tenacious as a bulldog when she’s on the scent. This one is still fresh. Put her on it.”

  The phone on the oversized desk that took up most of the space in Commander Anastos’s cramped office at MI6 rang. After looking at the screen, his back stiffened as if he were at attention .

  “Commander Anastos speaking… Yes sir. I understand, sir. Why the change in plan? Yes, sir. No questions, just get it done.” Anastos fidgeted in his chair. “It will be two mammoth operations, executed in parallel, sir. It stretches some pretty thin resources. Recent information? Your conference room in fifteen minutes. Yes, sir. We will be there. All of us.”

  The commander cradled the phone. His eyes bore into Jess’s. “You’re getting your wish.”

  Michael’s expression morphed into worry. The bastard was expecting to lose this fight, she thought. She had suddenly won the argument, and he didn’t like it.

  Jess didn’t break the gaze. She could be tough, too. “What happened?”

  “You are now the key to the success of this operation. The prime minister and the president agree we can’t do it without you.”

  Michael was ahead of Jess. She hated that. “No. You can’t let them do this, Tom.”

  “It’s done. She’s the bait.”

  57

  Gerhardt’s Plan

  Ali had seen way too many spy movies. She expected an enormous conference room with fifty agents and a huge world map like they had in Thunderball.

  Reality wasn’t nearly as interesting. The room needed painting. The table looked like it came from a secondhand office furniture shop. No windows. No maps. Just a boring whiteboard and a projector.

  There were fifteen. Jess, Lee, Michael, and Commander Anastos were the faces she knew. Lee’s boss was there, along with people who must have been MI6 section heads, military liaisons, and the United States government’s requisite representation. Associate Director Terry Taylor’s image flickered on a laptop screen, connected to his office in Washington.

  After reading Andy’s material, Ali told Lee to pull the fire alarm. Ten minutes on the phone with the right person had gotten them both invited to this gathering. Ali had a bad feeling about what that meant.

  The man who apparently headed up the project looked nothing like what she expected. He was short, dressed more like a bureaucrat than a spy. There was something else unique about him. He sat in a wheelchair.

  His voice was firm, and his eyes exuded authority. Ali wanted to slap herself for stereotyping him.

  “I’m Associate Director Gerhardt. Thank you all for coming on such brief notice.”

  His fingers tweaked the joystick that controlled his electric wheels, spinning the chair to face the whiteboard. A thumb pressed a remote control, and the projector came to life. Two blurry photos appeared on the screen.

  “These are our two subjects. Giovanni de Triste and Vladimir Prokofiev. Some of you know de Triste as Jack Crawford, the individual responsible for the murder of Marie Culpado. He is in Prokofiev’s employ, a q
uid pro quo for assistance provided to create a new identity for de Triste after he escaped from prison.”

  “Prokofiev is a former captain in the KGB, hence his preferred moniker. He’s a private businessperson now, with vast real estate holdings here in the UK and a half-dozen projects involving governments who enjoy less than cordial relationships with the west.”

  Gerhardt craned his neck to look at Jessica. “Detective Ramirez and Agent Wright came into contact with one of his associates last year in Arizona.”

  Jessica and Michael exchanged glances. Hers telegraphed disgust. Once again, Michael had known more about all of this and had kept it from everyone. Ali could imagine the argument ahead.

  “For political reasons, our two governments cooperated on a plan to ‘smoke out’ Crawford, as you Americans like to say. It involved great sacrifice, which we deeply regret. But it was successful in proving the connection between Crawford and The Captain, giving us legal avenues to seize the Russian’s holdings and seek a warrant to arrest him for a half-dozen capital offenses.”

  Gerhardt glanced at two of the men Ali didn’t recognize. She assumed they were intelligence people.

  “The information de Triste could provide to us in exchange for his life is of inestimable value to both our governments. This influenced our decision to allow the Culpado drama to take its course in Nashville.”

  He turned again to Jessica.

  “What we didn’t expect was the depth of The Captain’s desire to exact revenge on Detective Ramirez for her part in the neutralization of his planned attack in New York. That became clear when Crawford surfaced at the prison in Nashville.”