by Cindy Gerard
She longed for the luxury and comfort of Ray’s Ontario penthouse. She longed for Ray.
She felt so very tired.
And so very defeated after this morning’s debacle.
Her mole in the CIA had called three hours ago. Not only was Eva Salinas Brown alive, but Taggart and Cooper had escaped the booby trap with only minor injuries.
Fail, fail, fail.
She sat on a bed covered in a gaudy floral-print bedspread that smelled as if it hadn’t been laundered in this decade. Her phone sat on the bedside table; it should ring again very soon. She was more than twelve hours overdue in making her after-action report to the Russians. But she’d needed time to think. To season the shooting debacle into something palatable that the Russians would swallow. Something she could turn to her advantage.
Repetition always helped her think, so she’d cleaned the Ruger while running damage-control scenarios through her mind. She disassembled, oiled, and reassembled it over and over again, until she was satisfied the gun was spotless—and she was content with the new version of her story.
I do so love that OCD quality of yours, my dear.
Ray’s voice was as clear as if he were beside her, and a tear escaped and trickled down her face.
“Why did you have to leave me?” she asked the dark, empty room. “Why did you have to go? You were the only one to ever see me as a person. I need you to help me finish this.”
You’re very strong, dear heart. What you’ve suffered—at the hands of your parents, at the hands of others who should have protected you—has made you strong. You’ve always had to be. You can do this without me.
Another tear had her pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I don’t want to be strong anymore. I want to be with you.”
The Ruger was loaded. She’d practiced placing the end of the barrel in her mouth to see if she could reach the trigger—and she could.
But Ray had stopped her. Not yet, love. You have much work to do. You have debts to collect. And when this job is finished, not only will you have exacted our revenge, but you will also have the means to live like a queen for the rest of your life. I want that for you, darling. There’s time enough to come to me. I’ll always be waiting.
She didn’t want to wait. He’d been the only thing in her life worth living for. But she owed him to finish what he had started.
She startled when her phone rang, then settled herself with a deep breath.
“BLOCKED NUMBER” showed on the screen. The Russian. Again. She couldn’t ignore his calls any longer.
She answered using the code name he would recognize. “Anya.”
“Vadar. Where have you been?” he demanded in a high, nasal tone.
“Lying low,” she said. “Getting as far away from the target as possible.”
“Your report was due hours ago.”
“As I said, I’ve been a little busy.” He wouldn’t like it, but what could he do about it?
“Report,” he demanded after a pissed-off silence.
“The report is, there was a slight change of plans. A decision on my part that your employer will appreciate.”
Another brief silence followed. She could feel the anger hum through the connection. “You will explain this decision; then my employer can make that determination himself.”
“You’re certain no one can intercept our call?”
She’d picked up the high-tech phone from a post office box in Toronto a month ago. The key to that box had been mailed to a post office box in New York City. The Russians loved their cloak-and-dagger, particularly former KGB and Spetsnaz, Soviet special forces agents who ran the mafia, while Putin and his minions turned a blind eye in exchange for a cut of the profits.
She, however, wasn’t as confident of their technical ability as they were.
“The communication is secure. We have been over this before. Be careful what you say next, or I may think you are attempting to avoid this conversation. Now, did you or did you not eliminate the targets?”
“Better than that.” Her voice expressed supreme confidence. “One is out of the picture. The other three—”
“Stop right there. You were not able to deliver?” His nasal tone escalated to high-pitched disapproval.
“It wasn’t a question of inability. I made a strategic decision.”
“You were not employed to strategize. You were employed to destroy that team.” The venom in his voice sent a chill down her back, and her conviction wavered.
You can do this. Ray’s voice rallied her strength.
“You’re forgetting, Vadar. I handed your people this opportunity. If not for me, all of their plans would still be lost.”
She let him think about that. Let him remember that because of her, they also had another shot at the Eagle Claw project.
Two years ago, when she’d escaped undetected from the Idaho compound after Brown and his team had blown it and Ray up, she’d made her way to Ray’s secret residence in Ontario. There she’d slowly recovered. And grieved. Then, three months ago, while going through Ray’s encrypted computer files, she’d discovered that his operation in Idaho had involved much more than gun running and drugs.
He’d had a deal in the works with the Russian mafia for the theft of revolutionary aviation technology the Americans were developing. A technology the Russians would have developed themselves, if not for Mike Brown and his team. Not only had they destroyed the Idaho compound that was to have been the Russians’ staging area to breach the secret facility and steal back the Eagle Claw technology, but Brown’s team had also recently facilitated the escape of the Russian scientist who’d created the technology. Dr. Adolph Corbet was now spearheading the Russians’ project for the Americans.
The Russians wanted their scientist and their technology back. And because Mike Brown and his One-Eyed Jacks were a festering wound in their side, they wanted them eliminated. That’s where she came in.
“Explain this new strategy.”
“Oh, I will. But first, let me remind you of something else. I am the one who facilitated what you could not. I established contact with Dr. Corbet. I ensured that he was informed that the wife and children he thought were tucked safely away in Budapest were once again secured by Mother Russia’s loving hand. I maintain communication with him and remind him that his family lives only if he continues to provide updates on the progress of Eagle Claw.”
“Noted,” Vadar said in a somewhat calmer but no less irritated voice.
“All right. I chose not to eliminate the entire One-Eyed Jacks team for one simple reason. The loss to the U.S. covert defense machine would be too massive if I’d taken them all out. A loss on that scale would engage the might of the Department of Defense. They’d consider it an act of war, perhaps the first of many acts to come. And they would put all of their resources on it—do you understand? They’d double and triple security on soft and hard targets here in the States, as well as abroad. And that includes the compound where Corbet, at this very moment, is working on the Eagle Claw technology.”
When he said nothing, she knew she had him considering the wisdom of her “plan.”
“It would take little time for the Department of Defense to put two and two together and point the finger of blame directly at your organization. Instead, with only one casualty, they are searching for a sniper acting alone, a gunman with an ax to grind, or a random act of violence.”
After a long silence, he said, “Continue.”
“They have circled the wagons, so to speak, intent on protecting their own and on finding the person—not the Russian mafia—who dared attack them. My decision has avoided an all-out nationwide state of readiness against an enemy attack.
“Because of my decision,” she continued, “your team is now free to breach the air base and recover your Eagle Claw technology and your scientist. Occu
pied with searching for the lone gunman, they’ll never see it coming.”
And she was now free to pick off the One-Eyed Jacks at will. Free to savor the thrill of the hunter terrorizing the hunted.
“I will relay your report to my superiors,” Vadar said at long last.
“You do that. And while you’re at it, share this bit of information my source gave me today. If they want to breach that air base, they need to do it very soon.”
Along with the disappointing news of Taggart and Cooper’s survival, her mole had the one piece of good news that would turn the Russians’ focus away from her.
“Dr. Corbet reported today that the technology is mere steps away from completion,” she said. “He cannot stall or withhold the information from the U.S. government much longer. The window of opportunity has grown very short; the project will be complete within a matter of days.”
“How many days?”
“If you don’t strike within the next five days, the Eagle Claw technology will forever be out of Russia’s reach.”
Tuesday
The difficult we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer.
—U.S. Navy Seabees
11
7:30 a.m., ITAP Administrative Offices,
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Coop didn’t like the role of temporary team leader. He was a doer, not a paper pusher. Give him some camo paint and his weapons, and drop him into the thick of a Taliban offensive—that was the work that mainlined adrenaline into his system and gave him purpose.
Since he and Taggart were both senior team members, either of them could have taken over in Mike’s absence. But Taggart, who should have been in bed but had shown up sporting a black eye, wearing a sling, and struggling with a bitch of a headache, clearly wasn’t up to it.
So as the men gathered in the briefing room the next morning, Coop ignored the burning ache in his shoulder and made additions to the notes about the shooting on the whiteboard that covered the top half of a sixteen-foot-long wall.
When the scent of Obsession drifted into the room, he didn’t have to turn around to know who’d just walked in.
“She not only looks good enough to eat”—the scrape of a chair told Coop that Santos had risen—“but she also brings food to feed our hungry souls.”
“I’ve never heard doughnuts referred to as soul food,” Rhonda said with laugh, “but go right ahead.”
Coop had known she’d be arriving soon. And he knew he had to handle it. He turned around and lifted a hand in greeting.
She nodded, barely met his eyes, and set the box of doughnuts in the middle of the conference table. Then she sat down and started fiddling with her tablet.
See? Two grown-ups. Team members. Acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Had to kiss her, didn’t you, dumbass? Had to smell that hair, feel those breasts pressed against you. Had to suddenly think about her as touchable . . . and vulnerable . . . and maybe open to the idea of the two of you together.
It was all well and good to fantasize about Bombshell Burns when he knew he didn’t have an ice cube’s chance on a BBQ grill of getting within ten feet of her. It was an entirely different story after he’d actually held her in his arms, tasted her lips, and felt her body yield against his. The reality was a huge game changer—one he wasn’t ready for.
He’d stayed with Mike at the hospital for another hour after Rhonda left last night, instead of following her out the door and dealing with “the kiss” right then.
Well, it didn’t matter now. And the farther he got away from “it,” the more he hoped they might just let “it” drift off into obscurity, and they’d never have to talk about “it.”
But then he looked at her again. Tight, short, red skirt. White angora sweater. High navy-blue heels. He’d never look at the flag again without thinking of her.
He was so screwed.
“Guess we’re taking a break,” he said as Santos, Josh Waldrop, and Brett Carlyle helped themselves to the doughnuts.
“Sorry to sideline the meeting,” Rhonda said with an apologetic look, “but I thought the good news about Eva deserved a little celebration.”
“You thought right.” Santos winked and shot her a wide smile. “Any with chocolate filling?”
Rhonda grinned at him. “This is me you’re talking to. Would I forget something that important?”
“My bad.” Santos made a sweeping, apologetic gesture with his hand, then grimaced.
“You hurting today?” Rhonda asked with concern. Beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt, his biceps were wrapped in a white dressing.
“I’m fine.”
Santos had gotten by with a butterfly bandage on his upper arm.
“Don’t be poking your grubby finger into every doughnut to find your precious chocolate,” Carlyle grumbled, joining Santos at the conference table.
“Somebody pour me a cup?” Taggart asked.
Rhonda took one look at him and gasped. His left eye was red and purple and blue, heading toward black. The fingers of the hand that emerged from his sling were swollen and bruised. “You should be in bed.”
“Been there. Didn’t like it.”
Coop totally got where Taggart was coming from. He wasn’t nearly as bad off as Taggart, yet he felt as if he’d been run over by a tank. His leg didn’t feel too bad, but his shoulder burned like fire where the stitches sank into his swollen flesh.
“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be there. Go home,” Coop ordered.
“Bed rest is highly overrated,” Taggart said. “Give me some grunt work; I’ll be happy as hell. And you ain’t the boss of me.”
Well, he’d tried.
Coop surveyed the others. At least it was back to status quo for the rest of the team. Trash talk was a method of coping when one of their own was in danger, especially for Taggart. And Coop was getting to know what to expect from Santos, Waldrop, and Carlyle, too.
Mike had picked the three men for the ITAP team at Nate Black’s recommendation. After working with them for the past year, Coop fully understood why. Like him, Mike, and Taggart, all three were combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and they’d all done contract work with Nate’s team. On a particularly nasty op in Sierra Leone, they’d all been injured. Carlyle had broken his ankle, and Waldrop had almost died. Santos had taken that bullet yesterday and hadn’t even slowed down.
“Davis!” A unison greeting went up for Peter, the team’s operations manager, when he rolled into the room in his wheelchair.
“Treats?” Davis’s close-cropped hair was peppered with gray, though he was only in his mid-thirties.
“Help yourself.” Rhonda walked to the coffeepot and filled her Betty Boop cup. “Oh, God.” She gasped after taking her first sip. “I don’t know how you guys drink this poison.”
She walked out of the room, no doubt to dump the coffee and refill the mug from her personal coffeemaker.
“She’s not too predictable.” Davis laughed as he rolled over to the table and looked over the doughnuts.
Coop agreed with her: the coffee here sucked. He also kept a pot and his own fresh-ground beans—100 percent Blue Mountain Jamaican and well worth the splurge—in his office.
Davis filled a mug, then returned to the table and found the doughnut he wanted. When he’d first arrived more than a year ago, he’d looked like a man on death row. But they took care of their own, and Taggart even had him pumping iron for the last six months. He had an impressive set of guns on him now, and Coop could see how his self-confidence had grown.
Rhonda walked back into the room, met his eyes across the table, and bam. Coop flashed back to last night and that kiss and felt a full jolt of sexual electricity sear through him.
“Okay, people,” he said abruptly, jerking himself back to business. “I know we’re all in
a celebratory mood, but we’ve got work to do if we want to find that shooter.”
“Work that DCIS would knock our heads together for doing,” Carlyle mumbled around a mouthful of doughnut.
Totally true. But they were used to calling their own shots, and screw any other dog that tried to take away their bones.
Coop razzed him. “Do you think you can eat and think at the same time?”
“Is that what they call multitasking?” Carlyle’s grin split his face.
“For you? Probably.”
The door opened on their laughter, and Nate Black walked in.
The room grew quiet as everyone stood to attention.
“For God’s sake, you’re not in the military now, boys. At fuckin’ ease.”
Nervous laughs skittered around the room as Black joined Coop at the whiteboard and slowly looked it over.
They might thumb their noses at DCIS’s “stand down” orders, but Nathan Black had teeth, authority, and, most important, their respect
A former captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, he’d been the commanding officer of all the men now serving on his Black Ops Inc. team. Tall, probably six foot three, he was big in all ways that counted. A veteran of any recent conflict you could name, as decorated as a May Pole on May Day, and a leader who led from the front, he was trusted, loved, and no one to mess around with.
So Coop held his breath as Black took his time reading the notes that made it clear what they were up to. If Black—the unofficial top dog on the Black Ops table of organization—told them to back off, there might well be resignations. And though it would be painful, Coop would be the first one to hand in his. He’d cover Mike and Eva’s back no matter what it cost him.
“You know that DCIS and the FBI are all over this.” Black looked Coop square in the eye. “They don’t want you messing with their investigation.”
“I know that, sir, yes.”
Black considered him a few moments longer, then faced the rest of the team. Coop felt a sense of pride as they all showed no sign of backing down.
