Athena Force: Books 1-6

by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann

  “She was living with foster parents. The parents’ attorney convinced them to separate their interests from St. John’s because they were afraid they were going to be sued by the government.”

  “That wouldn’t have happened,” Riley growled.

  “Those people were scared to death. While St. John was on the computer, poking through records no one was supposed to have access to, the FBI hit the house with a full-on raid. Black suits. Riot gear. Tear gas. They kicked the doors down at two o’clock in the morning and handcuffed the whole family. The foster parents were in way over their heads. And they’d had St. John with them less than a year. They didn’t know anything about her.”

  “Sounds like they were looking out for their own hides. Not for that of a little girl. Hell, she was a kid.”

  Howie flipped through statements taken by the parents’ attorney. “They said they liked her, but she was distant.”

  Frustrated and feeling guilty, Riley pushed up out of the chair. He’d been sitting for over two hours straight and hadn’t noticed how long it had been until he’d seen the time on Howie’s computer screen. While the other agent had searched through electronic documents, Riley had gone through text files. He liked working with his hands when his thoughts were jumbled.

  And Sam St. John definitely had them jumbled. He hadn’t slept since she’d disappeared in Munich twenty-eight hours ago. With the mission going on, he’d been up for over seventy-six hours. He knew he wasn’t at his best, but he couldn’t stay away from the investigation.

  By rights, Mitchell could have pulled him from the hunt for Sam, but the director had chosen to let Riley work on a secondary effort. The primary team on the hunt was searching through the movements Sam had made during the forty-eight hours up to the Steiner op.

  “St. John was a child prodigy,” Howie said. “A real computer savant. That’s why she’s so good with languages, too. That could intimidate the hell out of a normal parent.”

  “What happened to Sam…St. John as a result of the court case?”

  If Howie noticed the slip, he didn’t mention it. From what Riley had seen of the agent, he was a solid, stand-up guy.

  “Sam was placed on probation—”

  “At eight?” Riley was stunned. “We’re talking about a kid here.”

  “Yeah.” Howie nodded. “But we’re also talking about a high-security agency she broke into. And that was eighteen years ago. Phone phreaks and hackers were recognized as a threat then. Cybersecurity and firewalls were in their infancy stages. There was little protection against hackers and other subversive elements raiding the Internet. Her parents were ordered to keep her away from computers and the Internet unless she was supervised.”

  Riley went back to the notes he’d made on a legal pad. “She entered the Athena Academy at nine. The files I’ve read on that place say that a kid normally isn’t allowed to enter till the age of ten.”

  Howie checked the files. “Entrance to the Athena Academy was one of the conditions the judge stipulated for St. John’s probation.”

  Riley flipped through pages till he found what he was looking for. “The student body at the Athena Academy is limited to two hundred students.”

  “That’s a hell of a lot smaller than my graduating class.”

  “Two hundred kids scattered across six grade levels,” Riley emphasized. “Figure less than thirty kids per level. What do you bet the chances are that other graduates knew Sam St. John?”

  “I’d say the odds are pretty good.”

  “So would I. Let’s make some calls and see what we can find out.”

  Bright morning sunlight streamed down over the cemetery in Tucson, Arizona. A quiet, dry wind moved across the parched land and seemed to shy away from the landscaped areas.

  Clothed in a prim black dress, Sam sat in her rented car and watched over the cemetery with a pair of binoculars. The service would be a good four hundred yards away, through a line of imported trees. She would easily escape detection by anyone at the funeral.

  Sam left the window down, but the breeze wasn’t cool and the car’s interior was reaching sweltering conditions. If she’d left the air conditioner running, though, a large pool of condensation on the ground could draw someone’s attention.

  So far, she hadn’t gotten in touch with Alex, Darcy, Tory, Kayla or Josie. She hadn’t dared to.

  In part, she was afraid that someone from the Agency might be watching. But the biggest reason she didn’t talk to her friends was because she didn’t know what to say.

  At ten-thirty, the funeral procession came into view along the two-lane highway that twisted through the foothills like a broken-backed snake. The cemetery was located on one of the highest areas surrounding the city.

  Fear quavered through Sam when she spotted the two police motorcycles leading the long line of cars. A midnight-blue hearse followed next, trailed by two family cars. The line of vehicles seemed to go on forever.

  Grave diggers lounged beneath a tree not far from the green-canopied grave site. They smoked cigarettes and talked, watching the arrival.

  Sam tried to will herself numb as she watched the pallbearers take the casket from the back of the hearse. She forced herself to remember Rainy as she had been, not as she must be inside that horrible box.

  A car accident. Rainy had fallen asleep at the steering wheel and driven off the road.

  Even after Allison Gracelyn had told her about Rainy’s death, Sam hadn’t believed it. An accident couldn’t have happened to Rainy, who was so careful and meticulous.

  When Sam saw Alex, Kayla, Tory and Darcy step to the row of family seats, she wanted to go join them. But just as she started to get out of the car, her emotions burst inside her. Hot tears ran down her face. She remained seated in the car. No one was going to see her when she wasn’t in full command of herself and her feelings. She wouldn’t allow it.

  The mourners gathered at the canopy-covered grave site. The preacher began speaking, and his voice rolled over the cemetery.

  Resolutely, knowing that she couldn’t stay away without telling Rainy goodbye in person, Sam opened the car door and got out. She strode down the hill toward the graveside service.

  She had covered only a short distance when a group of men standing at another grave site turned toward her. They moved deliberately, converging on her quickly and efficiently, cutting off her approach to Rainy’s grave site.

  Desperately Sam turned back toward the rental car. If she could reach the vehicle, she had a chance. She could—

  Four more men surrounded the rental car. They’d come up behind her. They’d had her under surveillance, Sam realized. They’d waited for her to quit the car to catch her out in the open.

  And she had missed them. She felt incredibly stupid. Someone had found her ties to the Athena Academy and tracked them back to Rainy.

  “St. John,” one of the men called.

  Sam turned toward the speaker. He was dressed in a black suit and wraparound black sunglasses.

  “Don’t run, St. John,” Riley McLane warned. “If you do, we’re going to chase you. And if we chase you, I can guarantee that your friend isn’t going to get the kind of burial you’d like to see her have.”

  “What are the charges?” Sam demanded. “What is it you think I’ve done?”

  “We aren’t going into it here. Give it up, St. John. It’ll be easier on you.”

  Frustrated, Sam stood her ground. She clenched her fists, unconsciously dropping into a T-stance.

  The agents flanking Riley slowed their approach. Riley kept coming.

  “I didn’t come here to walk away empty-handed, St. John,” Riley said. “Stand down. You choose which way you want it, but you’re coming with me.”

  Sam wanted to run. She even wanted to fight. Maybe she would lose against so many opponents, but the effort would at least allow her to work through some of the hurt and confusion she felt. She didn’t know why Rainy had had to die, and she didn’t know why MI-6 had begun
pursuing her or why the CIA now seemed intent on taking up the chase.

  But she couldn’t do that to Rainy or her family. Or to their friends. She looked at the grave site as the preacher continued his message. They all deserved to say goodbye to their friend in peace. She had no doubt that Riley would carry out his threat to take her into custody by force even during the funeral if he had to.

  “All right,” she said to Riley.

  “Hands behind your back, St. John,” Riley said gruffly. “You know the drill.” The metal links of the handcuffs gleamed in his fingers.

  Sam placed her hands behind her back and surrendered herself. She pushed her feelings away. Nothing was going to touch her. She wouldn’t allow the fear or frustration inside her. She forced the pain away, ripped the confusion apart and concentrated on being empty.

  Chapter 6

  Despite the fact that Riley had a dozen trained agents around him, men who had worked takedowns before in war zones and battlegrounds around the world, he didn’t feel completely confident they would take Samantha St. John without a fight. He knew they’d take her; he had more than enough men to do that and she had no place to run. But he hoped she didn’t force them to hurt her. Giving up wasn’t something he believed was in her nature. She was a fighter, a warrior to the last.

  He’d faced her on the racquetball court. Other times, he’d seen her practicing martial arts with agents and instructors. She hadn’t won all the time, but she’d never given up, never simply accepted defeat.

  Sam didn’t accept it now. She only permitted it. He saw that as he closed on her. Standing straight and tall despite her petite stature, every inch of her screaming defiance, Sam accepted the fact that she could do nothing to effect her escape.

  Dammit, Sam, what the hell is going on with you? Why did you do what you did?

  Riley stepped behind her. It would have been easier if she had run, if she had shown her guilt. Riley would have felt better if he’d had the chance to get his own adrenaline levels pumped. Adrenaline took away all moral thinking and left only the animal need to survive, to win. He could have lived with that.

  The way things sat now, he felt guilty. As the oldest of four brothers in his family, guilt was part of his nature, tied closely to responsibility. He didn’t undertake a mission to fail, and he never gave less than everything he had. He never had.

  But putting the cuffs on Sam St. John, even after he’d seen the evidence of guilt Mitchell had offered, didn’t give him any sense of satisfaction. More than that, the action didn’t feel like the right thing to do.

  Standing behind her, Riley was acutely aware of the size difference between them. He stood nearly a foot taller and weighed nearly twice what she did. He’d been conscious of that difference in size on the racquetball court, but there it hadn’t been so apparent. Sam had played big.

  She felt vulnerable now. Not helpless, because he felt certain if she’d chosen to fight, it would have been a hell of a thing. But she definitely felt vulnerable.

  The black dress hugged her slim hips, emphasizing the womanly curves. Black hose covered taut legs. She wore a red wig, and the disguise might have fooled a lot of people, but Riley had known her instantly. Her size marked her, and the controlled way she moved, fluid and graceful, identified her to him immediately. He loved watching her move, whether on the racquetball courts or the exercise mats. He’d never seen another woman in any part of the world that he’d been in who moved quite like Sam St. John.

  He took one of her hands in his, feeling the ridge of calluses along the side of her hand and on her fingers. A lot of women would have been embarrassed by the lack of softness, but these were hands of a woman not afraid to get her hands dirty. Riley’s mother was like that. She sometimes still climbed aboard one of the farm’s tractors and put in a day tilling fields, bucking hay or shucking corn.

  Riley respected women like that. He’d grown up around them.

  He closed one cuff around her wrist. In a whisper he said, “Let me know if they’re too tight.”

  Sam said nothing. Her black-lensed gaze remained locked on the funeral service. Her arms stayed limp, giving no indication of resistance.

  “C’mon, St. John.” Travers, a young agent who always liked playing the hard guy, grabbed Sam’s arm and started to pull.

  Sam hesitated just a moment. Riley knew that Travers was leaving himself open to attack. Travers was too cocky, too sure of himself. But the young agent was also good at dealing physical punishment. Travers would use on attack as an excuse to respond. Sam could have turned in a heartbeat and kicked him to the ground before he’d known the attack was coming. Riley knew she’d had to stop herself from doing exactly that, and he knew that Sam was having control issues as much as he was.

  “Let her go,” Riley growled.

  Travers looked up at him.

  “We’re staying through the service.” Riley stepped forward and pulled Travers’s hand from Sam’s arm.

  “You’re taking a chance.” Travers’s voice was thin and hard. “She might not be here just for the funeral. She could be meeting someone.”

  Howie Dunn stepped up without a word, invading Travers’s space and making the other agent step back. Howie kept his hands crossed in front of him and didn’t say a word, but there was no way to ignore his presence.

  Although Howie normally stayed in the records office, Riley had requested Howie to accompany him. They’d continued working on St. John’s file during the flight out to Tucson, in case St. John hadn’t shown.

  “We’re staying through the service,” Riley repeated.

  “If anything goes wrong, it’s going to be on your head,” Travers warned. “And this is going in my report.”

  “When you write that up, let me know if you have any trouble with the big words,” Howie said, taking another step forward and forcing Travers back again. He turned and stood behind St. John, dwarfing her like some protective giant.

  Riley stood at Sam’s right. Between Howie and himself, Riley knew they created a wall between the young woman and the rest of the CIA team. No one besides Travers seemed to have a problem with staying.

  Sam stood quietly for a moment. She spoke without turning to address him. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Riley said. He noticed the glint of a tear sliding down her cheek. He resisted the immediate impulse to wipe it away. If Sam could have found a way, he knew she’d have broken his arm for even trying.

  The preacher talked for a while longer. Then, after the final prayer, the group broke up and began talking. Only a few of them looked up at the quiet gathering of CIA agents and prisoner only a short distance away.

  Riley lifted his arm and spoke into the pencil mike on the inside of his wrist. “Bring up the truck.”

  “On my way.”

  Taking the inside of Sam’s right elbow, Riley turned and walked her back to the narrow courtesy road through the cemetery. None of the graveside attendees came after them. A black Chevy Suburban with dark-tinted windows rolled down other roads and came to a stop in a swirl of dust that quickly eddied back to the ground.

  Riley opened the door and helped Sam into the vehicle’s rear seat. A shield of bulletproof glass protected the driver and the man in the other front seat from the rear seat’s occupants.

  Sam sat at the other end of the seat. The single tear had dried on her face, but Riley could still see the trail that it had left.

  Standing in the open doorway, Riley asked, “Want to talk about this, St. John?”

  “About what, Special Agent McLane?” Her voice sounded hard and flat.

  “About why we’re here.”

  “Maybe you want to tell me.”

  Riley felt some of the tension in his stomach release. She wasn’t broken. That mattered. He felt good about that. Even with the odds stacked against her the way they were, she wasn’t giving in. Riley respected that, even if he didn’t respect what she’d done.

  “Why did you do it?” Riley asked.
<
br />   “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Frustrated, Riley shook his head. “You had a career ahead of you, St. John. A good career. If you’d wanted it.”

  Sam kept her eyes forward. “Are you turning me over to MI-6?”

  Riley waited a moment, letting her think about that possibility.

  “If you’re not going to answer, then let’s get moving,” Sam said. “I’ll find out when we get there. I can wait.”

  Riley cursed to himself. It would have been better if she’d been afraid. She is afraid, he realized, thinking about the young kid she’d been who had never known a true mother and father. Or even a true home. She’d been bounced to a dozen different places by the time she was seven.

  “I might not be able to help you once we get there,” Riley warned.

  “Then help me now.” Sam turned her black-lensed gaze on him.

  Riley looked at her for a moment. The two agents in the front of the Suburban could hear the conversation. They were also taping. That was standard operating procedure. A law enforcement vehicle was considered public property and privacy laws did not protect conversations held within them.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Damn, but you’re hardheaded.”

  “And that bothers you more than thinking I’m some kind of criminal? Or a national threat?” Her voice was cold and distant.

  Exasperated, not trusting his own emotions and not truly understanding them either, Riley turned to Howie. “Hold the truck here a little while longer. I’ll be right back.”

  A thousand questions shot through Sam’s mind as she sat in the air-conditioned Suburban. What had turned Riley against her? Whatever was going on with British Intelligence must be severe.

  Was the Agency really going to turn her over to MI-6? She didn’t know if the CIA would do that. Or even if they could. She had rights as an American citizen.

  However, she also knew that the world had changed after September 11. Nations had a tendency to look after their own needs first instead of the rights of individuals. The weight of the handcuffs around her wrists reminded her of that.