Crapcrapcrap.
She had to run as far away from Charlie as she could go. If the SBs knew the man who’d gotten them court martialed was protecting the data they wanted…and in love with the girl who knew too much…they’d torture him to death and enjoy it.
Oh, Charlie. She loved him with all of her heart.
Quietly, she rose from the blanket and he turned over. She froze. He was still asleep. Good. She dressed and grabbed her shoes. She didn’t have time to put them on.
Run!
She took off, quickly leaving the old house behind her. The sun was creeping up, lighting the crazy cement steps, allowing her to take them two at a time. The rocks were rough on her bare feet, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t afford to slow down. The plan was to get to the junk and pray that the team would assume she was working on the hard drive. Wouldn’t they be surprised when she started up the engine sped away from Po Toi Island?
Once she was further out in the South China Sea, she’d send a message to Director Lau—I’ve got your data. Stole it back from the SEALs. Will trade for two million dollars and safe passage out of China.
The money was nothing to Director Lau and she wanted it seem like she was serious about the deal. It was a lie. She wouldn’t meet him and she didn’t have the memory card. Mack did. She hoped it would make it home safely and land in the right hands. She of course, would never go home again. The thought made her sad, but she couldn’t change things.
She jumped over a small boulder and landed hard on her bare feet. Stumbling, she pushed on. There wasn’t much time. She had to steal the junk without getting caught, set up a meet with Director Lau that she wouldn’t attend, and with any luck, disappear forever.
The problem?
Her luck had always been bad. The only good thing that happened to her was sleeping in Old Mo’s house. Charlie would be devastated when he found out what she did. And he wouldn’t know that she’d done it for him.
Tears filled her eyes. She forced herself to run faster.
No stopping now.
Charlie was awake when she left him. What in the hell was she up to?
Stealthily, he followed, stalking her like he did in the water. Why didn’t she put on her shoes? Why run at all? He almost called out to her to stop when she stumbled over that small boulder. She could have broken her ankle. The crazy woman kept going, running toward the pier.
Shit. The junk.
Did her mad flight have something to do with whatever she’d found on the hard drive? He really should have slipped away an hour ago to see what she was hiding, but he didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to trust her. Big mistake. Like believing that their time together in Old Mo’s house had meant as much to her as it did him.
She was limping by the time she’d made it to the junk. Her poor, beautiful feet. He’d find some antibacterial cream to rub into them and bandage her cuts himself. As if hearing his thoughts, she turned around to make sure no one was watching. She couldn’t see him behind a tree.
When she thought she was alone, she worked to pull off the camouflage netting that draped the junk. If he followed any closer, he’d be exposed and she’d see him. Determined to find out what she was up to, he held back until she went aboard.
He waited a minute to see if she’d come back out. Nope. The engine started.
“Hell, no!” he sprinted down the beach.
His mind raced, his boots pounded the sand. He was a good thirty feet away when the wooden boat pulled away from the dock. “Amber, stop!”
She must have heard him because she gave the boat full throttle to get away. Luckily for him, she stalled the engine.
One flying leap landed him on the wood deck.
“Charlie! You can’t be here.” She had the audacity to tell him to his face. Like she wished he was gone.
He took her by the shoulders and looked in her eyes. “What in the hell are you doing?”
She didn’t look away. “Running. Now get off.”
“You’re running?” He knew it and yet he couldn’t believe it. He turned off the engine. “Listen, sweetheart, just say last night was a mistake. You don’t have to do a dangerous bare-footed run down the side of a hill to steal a boat just to get away from me.”
She put a cool hand on his cheek. It was trembling. “Last night was the best thing that ever happened to me. Thank you. I won’t ever forget you.”
He ground his molars. Anger and fear over losing her coursed through his veins while his heart shattered. “So that’s it? You were going to leave me without saying good-bye.”
“I did say good-bye. Just not with words.”
Right. That was how he said he loved her, and apparently how she said good-bye. He looked down at her dirty, bleeding toes and moved her to the bench. “Sit. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Eww. Don’t touch those.My feet are filthy.”
“Relax.” He grabbed a towel from the bucket behind the bench and gently started to wipe. “Continue.”
She chewed her lip. “They want me, Charlie. I won’t let them have you as well.”
He stopped wiping.
“I’m the girl, remember? The dead body?”
She didn’t honestly think he’d forgotten, did she?. “So you were going to…what? Run away and hide? All by yourself? That’s crazy. We’re protecting you, Amber. The team will keep you safe. I thought you trusted us by now, or at least trusted me. Let me do my job.”
“What if you can’t? What if…?” She took a stuttering breath and didn’t finish the sentence. “They’ll keep coming. They’ll kill us, Charlie, all of us. Unless my plan works.”
He cleaned the other foot. “What plan?”
“I’ll send an email to Director Lau once I’m far enough away from the island. I’ll tell him I have the memory card and I’d like to trade it for two million dollars.”
His head exploded. “That would lure them right to you!” Okay, he was yelling at her, but he couldn’t exactly control himself. Dammit! What was she thinking?
“Not exactly. I’d bounce the signal off several satellites, ping-pong it around the globe and send the final relay to Outer Mongolia. They wouldn’t know where I really was.”
“And then?”
“I’d be long gone.”
“Dammit, Amber, this is insane.” He cradled both over her feet in his hands.
“I’ve never loved a man before, Charlie. I don’t love easily. You are my first, probably my last. I was trying to protect you.”
She loved him? “You can’t run like this. If they find you, when they find you, you’ll be alone.”
“That’s the way it should be. Don’t you see? I’ve put us all at risk. If I leave, they’ll follow me and you’ll be safe. Please, Charlie, let me do this. I can’t stand the idea that they’ll hurt you. I wouldn’t…”Grief closed her throat. “I wouldn’t survive it.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” He pulled her into his lap and kissed her temple. “Stay with me. It’ll kill me, dead, if you go out there by yourself. We’ll figure out who is giving the hostiles their orders and keep them from hurting anyone else. We’ll do it together.”
“I know who they are.”
For the second time that day, Amber had surprised the shit out of him. The sun had only been up for a few minutes. “Want to repeat that?”
“You call them sadistic bastards. They probably still call themselves Superior Buds-men.” She took a deep breath and pointed to his tattoo. “SBs. Crow’s men.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The team gathered in the back room of the mom and pop seaweed store. The place was musty and smelled of fish and sea. They’d all been briefed on what Amber had figured out and were waiting for Mack to come back inside. Jenna stood by the window chewing her nail and watching Mack as he talked on the phone with her father.
Charlie and Amber sat at a small table covered with paper-flat strips of seaweed. Under the table, Charlie’s leg touched hers. He held her hand and drew mindless desig
ns on her knuckles and up her arm. Like he couldn’t stop touching her.
Neither one had mentioned to the team that Charlie had caught Amber running away.
Willy sat on a stool chewing on seaweed, his gaze following Tavon who pace like a caged bull inside the small room.
Tavon grumbled, “This is FUBAR! One hundred percent FUBAR.” He stepped over a wooden carton and Amber tried to work out what the acronym meant in her head. “SEALS did this shit? When I get my hands on those muther…”
Ty Whitehorse came and sat on the other side of Amber, interrupting Tavon’s rant. “Great intelligence work, Miss Fitz. At least now we know who the bad guys are.”
“SEALS!” Tavon roared loud enough to make Amber’s insides shake. “I’m going to tear them apart!”
“Whoa, calm down Big T.” Willy plugged one ear. “Ex-SEALs, man. They aren’t one of us, not anymore.”
“They’re going to be shark chum, once I get ahold of them.” Tavon lowered his voice but the expression on his face made Amber grip Charlie’s hand harder.
“Better. Good inside voice,” Willy said.
“Are you okay?” Amber elbowed Charlie. He was quiet. What was going on inside that beautiful head of his?
“Yeah. Just thinking.”
“About Crow’s men?”
He nodded and kissed her knuckles. She was scared for him. If Crow’s men realized who he was, they’d kill him. No questions asked. “Maybe you should sit this one out, Charlie.”
He lifted his head. “What? Why?”
“She’s right, little brother,” Willy said. “You’ve got history with these assholes that could compromise the mission.”
Charlie’s cheeks turned red. “That’s bullshit. I want to take them down. Once and for all.”
Mack strode into the room. “I’ve got our orders.”
Jenna took the last remaining chair.
“Apparently, Crow has been on the watch list for some time but he’s small potatoes, with a handful of men. Not enough funding or backing to pull something like this off. Even if he joined forces with the Triad 14K for firepower, Admiral Collins feels we are dealing with the front men. Someone is controlling Crow.”
“But I couldn’t find any data on them,” Charlie said softly.
Willy cocked his head. “You looked them up?”
“I ran face recognition software, employment records, prison records, FBI fingerprint files, death certificates, airport surveillance, trains, ships and everything I could think of. It was as if Crow had fallen off the face of the earth.”
“Hell, I usually just use Google or Facebook. But then again, I’m no computer dork,” Willy said. He gave Ty’s shoulder a shove. “Hey man, pull me off another strip of seaweed. This stuff grows on you.”
“Why? What were you looking for, Charlie?” Mack asked.
Charlie rubbed his hand over his hair. “I’m not sure. I had a bad gut feel. After Crow and his men were dishonorably discharged, I heard rumors that they’d been picked up by a private organization. I couldn’t believe anyone would hire those assholes. I tried to figure out who they worked for and came up empty-handed. I finally gave up and tried to forget about them.”
Tried. The word wasn’t lost on Amber. He couldn’t forget them, not with his horrible memories and the crow tattoo on his arm.
“I couldn’t track them because—“
“Someone blocked you,” Amber finished. “I assume your clearance is—
“Top level,” he finished for her.
Her eyes widened. “That means—“
“Yeah. Bad shit,” Charlie snarled.
“Full sentences for those of us who aren’t geniuses, please.” Willy’s mouth was full.
“I think I understand. Admiral Collins said Crow and his men must have inside help. He believes there is a mole, or a whole colony of them.” Mack’s steely gaze touched each of them. “Either in the CIA, or the White House.”
“I say both the CIA and the White House,” Amber said softly.
“Me too,” Charlie agreed. “They were using the Chinese company and the triad to throw us off their scent. If the SBs get their hands on top secret US weaponry to use against the United States, we’ll all be at their mercy.”
“FUBAR.” Amber now knew what it meant.
“How do we stop them?” Ty asked.
“What did my dad say? Is he sending a naval carrier?” Jenna wondered. “The whole fleet?”
“Nope.” Mack grimaced. “We’re on our own here. The Admiral wants us to continue with the mission and ferret out the leaders—the SBs for lack of a better name. If the admiral acts, they’ll know we’re onto them and go dark. This might be our only chance to draw them out.”
“How the hell are we supposed to do that?” Tavon growled.
“With bait.” Mack held up the memory card.
Ty shook his head. “They won’t believe we suddenly changed sides. We can’t just walk in there and negotiate with them.”
“No. But I can.” Amber took a big breath. “I can convince them I did this for the money. They’ll believe it. Send me in, Mack.”
“No!” Charlie scooted his chair back so loudly that Amber let out a little squeal. “Hell, no! No friggin’ way! No, Mack. That’s just…no. Absolutely not. Million times, no.”
“Tell us what you really think, Charles.” Willy laughed. “I agree with him, though. We don’t have the man-power to protect her. It would be a suicide mission with no guarantee of a successful outcome.” He put his hand on Amber’s shoulder, which caused Charlie to sit back down beside her again. “Why don’t you two mega-brains go somewhere cozy, like, um, an old ruined house and come up with a plan?”
Amber’s cheeks went hot. Did everyone know what she and Charlie had done in Old Mo’s house? Crap! Had Willy watched? Listened?
“I’ve already got one,” Jenna said. “A good plan this time. I swear. It’ll work.”
All heads in the room swung toward hers.
“I don’t know, babe. You’d better steer clear of this one,” Mack said what Amber suspected everyone was thinking. Jenna had issues to deal with and couldn’t go with the team. Amber could.
“You’ve got to send me to make the trade. It’s the only way,” Amber said. “If we wait too long we’ll lose them. They’ll find some other way to hack into the D.O.D and we’d be right back where we started.”
Jenna nodded. “She’s right. I know where we can set up the meet and get the man-power to protect her. Macao. It’s like Las Vegas or Monte Carlo in Asia.”
“Who do you know in Macao?” Mack asked.
“Johnny Wane.” She smiled brightly. “Not the western actor, the Arabian sheik who owns one of the largest casinos in Macao called the Wild West. He loves all things American. He has a huge Arabian security force and is armed to the max with the latest and greatest technology. He’s been battling against organized crime for years. He’ll probably jump at the chance to stop a triad. He’ll back us up if we need it, I know he will.”
Mack crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes. “All you have to do is ask?”
She shrugged. “He did say ‘anything I ever wanted.’ I’ll give him a call.”
Mack didn’t look too happy about that. “You don’t have your cell phone anymore.”
“Whose fault is that? You were the one who threw it in the ocean.” She gave him the evil eye.
Amber frowned. Mack told the Admiral the cell phone had been drowned in the tub. Someone wasn’t telling the truth.
“But I remember Johnny Wane’s number. No worries. I’ll use your phone.” Jenna opened her palm and he placed his cell in her hand.
Willy leaned forward and whispered into Charlie’s ear so loudly that Amber heard him. Maybe everyone did. “Dude, a sheik named Johnny Wane is providing back-up at some Asian Wild West. What could possible go wrong?”
Amber swallowed loudly. Her thoughts exactly.
“Mack? Can I speak to you?” Charlie rose. “Alone.” Anger
thrummed through his voice.
On his way out, he socked Willy in the shoulder. The thud reverberated through the small room.
Willy rubbed his shoulder. “Ouch. Dammit! What’d I do? I was on his side, but it’ll be the last time if he keeps punching me like that.” He smiled brightly. “Hey, what do you know? My brother no longer hits like a girl!”
Johnny Wane, the sheik, sent a private helo to lift the team off Po Toi Island. Before they left, Mack gave the junk, skiff and sampan to the couple who owned the seaweed store. Their tearful gratitude seemed to embarrass Mack. He said he owed them at least that much after Willy had chowed through most of their day’s supply of seaweed.
Johnny Wane promised to send a Humvee limo to pick them up at his private airport. For reasons that would become obvious, he said, there was no helo pad on the top of the casino. The helo and the limo were bullet proof and full armed.
Amber had been to Las Vegas many times. She was surprised to see that Macau out-sparkled, out-blinged, and basically out-Vegased Vegas. The limo drove them down the busy Cotai Strip, which was billed as “The Las Vegas Strip of the East.” It sported the biggest casino in the world, the Venetian Macao. The team got out of the limo at the front entrance of a giant building shaped like a pyramid. Or maybe, with the two cigar Indian statues flanking the glass doors, it was an enormous teepee. The structure looked like it was made entirely of glass and lit by alternating blue and red flashing lights.
The Wild West Casino.
Mack went first, Ty right behind him.
Willy was third, but kept close to Amber, turning to whisper off-handed comments. “What does this building make you think of? He’s compensating for something, right?”
She didn’t answer. She was too scared to talk. Charlie was on her right side, closest to the crowds, gently guiding her with his hand on her back. His eyes scanned the lobby, hyper alert, vigilant. It was nice to have a bodyguard. Still, she wished he’d stayed back at Old Mo’s house, or better yet, his own. She didn’t want him here. A really bad feeling burrowed deep inside her. Crow’s men might kill the man she loved.
Lock and Load (SEAL EXtreme Team) Page 18
