No Remorse_A Manhunters Novel

by Skye Jordan

  “You really are a nerd,” he said, amused. “No one gets this stuff. No one even wants to get it.”

  “This is amazing.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “It’s like a window into both the brain and the body.” When she returned her gaze to the papers, she said, “Show me something specific you can read in these.”

  A rich sense of gratification sank into Austin’s gut. He mirrored her stance and pointed to a graph mapping muscle engagement in relation to movement. “Here, I can see Tevez’s left rear deltoid isn’t up to par. He took a bullet in Afghanistan several months back. I can compare it to the same movement in the other guys or to his own movement in previous exercises.”

  She turned her head and looked at him. “So they’re like test subjects for you.”

  When his gaze cut that direction, Austin realized how close they were for the first time. So close he could see the various rings of blue in her irises, darker on the outside and growing lighter toward the center. His other senses came online in a rush, feasting on the freshly showered, fruity scent of her. The warmth of her body. The words spilling off her lips.

  “Does that mean you can evaluate healing?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He dragged his gaze away—kicking and screaming—but his other four senses couldn’t be as easily controlled. “To some degree, anyway.”

  “What else can you see?” she asked, returning her gaze to the paper.

  Something niggled deep in his brain. Something about the way she’d dismissed his comment about Tevez taking a bullet. Like it was no surprise. Like it went without saying his men got shot. Almost like it didn’t register.

  He pushed the odd thoughts from his mind and refocused. “This shows me that the increased weight Jovan has been pressing in his power cleans has quickened his time from squat to sprint and lengthened his stride.”

  He pointed to another interesting find from the morning. “These EEG signals show that the meditation practice Beau adopted last month is sharpening his focus.”

  “Holy crap,” she whispered, straightening and crossing her arms with a shake of her head. “This is fascinating. I could seriously get lost in this all day.”

  “You are one of the very few.” He deliberately put a little more space between them. “Everyone falls asleep when I start talking about this, which is fine. Whether they understand it or not, whether it interests them or not, is immaterial. They want what comes out of the research.”

  She looked at him, her gaze sharp and intelligent. “And what, exactly, is that?”

  “Next-level elite soldiers.”

  “Wow,” she said again.

  The spark in her eyes seemed genuine. He’d never seen the same enthusiasm for his work anywhere else. At least not until now.

  “What about athletes? Wouldn’t this kind of information give pros an edge over the competition?”

  “Sure. These techniques are already being used in that field. But I don’t know enough about any one sport to tailor my program to fit elite athletes. All I know a lot about is…” Killing, tactical assault, hostage rescue… “Being a soldier.”

  She shook her head and scanned the printouts one more time, then pointed to a spike at the end of each graph. “What does this correlate to?”

  He huffed a laugh and muttered, “You. Getting out of the pool.”

  She remained silent a long second before quick, deep laughter rolled out of her. The kind of laughter that made Austin grin. “Oh my God, that’s hilarious.”

  He was pleased by her lighthearted attitude. This subject could get so awkward. “Like I said, they’re definitely guys.”

  “I’d better go give those guys a break from Bella bending their ears.” She turned away, then back. “Oh, I’d like to run in the mornings, if that’s okay.”

  That idea put a damper on the zing he’d been feeling. “Where do you plan on running?”

  “Just around the property. Thought I’d find my way down to the beach. I’d like to get my bearings, see if there are any learning opportunities hidden in the jungle.”

  “I’m sure there are,” he said, “but my training site takes up a good portion of the land to the northeast.” And he had all kinds of equipment and supplies there that had the potential to harm. “And there’s a natural pond on the property near the border, which draws jaguars. They generally hunt at night, but an early morning run is still dangerous.”

  “Jaguars.” She said the word with reverence and awe. “I’d love to see one.”

  Damn, he liked this woman’s zest for life. But around here, that needed to be tempered so she didn’t get hurt. “Not up close and personal without a weapon, you don’t. There’s one male hanging around that’s pushing two hundred pounds. The guys call him Kujo. Once, he grabbed a cow from the neighbor’s property that weighed a lot more than you. Not only did he kill it, but he dragged it into a tree, where he ate it.”

  That doused her excitement a little. “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah. They’re serious predators here. Let me show you the area tomorrow. Then we’ll figure out a safe jogging path.”

  “Perfect. Six a.m.?”

  “The perimeter is about five miles. Are you up for that?”

  “Yep.”

  Of course she was. “Then make it five thirty.”

  “Done.”

  When she exited the office, Austin had to force himself not to watch her walk out. Then he took another fifteen minutes to get his head on straight as he organized the files and put things away.

  Once his desk was clean, he stared out the window, but he didn’t see the gorgeous ocean view. He was deep inside himself, trying to ferret out the annoying sensation that had been plaguing him since he’d first seen her.

  When a scan of his mind didn’t uncover the problem, he started downstairs for lunch.

  “We’ve been in Mogadishu for four months,” Beau was saying.

  “I’ve heard the violence has ebbed.” This came from Everly.

  Austin paused on the steps, out of sight but within earshot.

  “Still get something every day,” Beau said. “Just before we took leave, a car bomb killed a dozen civilians.”

  “When I was there,” Everly said, her voice a subdued hum, “a car bomb was the least of our worries.”

  “When was that?” Beau asked.

  “Two-thousand ten.”

  Beau pulled in a breath between his teeth.

  “It was after the worst of the wars a few years earlier,” she said, “but still crazy violent. Easily one of the hardest assignments I ever had. Kids getting chewed up and spit out by landmines, hostile forces opening fire on the public. Yeah, I don’t miss that.”

  Kids getting chewed up and spit out by landmines. Hostile forces…

  Austin’s sixth sense vibrated again. She spoke like someone who’d truly been there, witnessed the devastation, just as her résumé claimed. What in the hell was it about her that kept lighting up his nerves?

  He climbed the stairs again and paused on the landing, where he dialed Cooper, the member of his security staff Decker had dispatched for verification on Everly’s references.

  “Hey, boss.” He sounded groggy.

  “Sorry,” Austin said. “I just realized that I not only have no idea where you are right now, I have no clue what time it is there.”

  “I’m in Kenya, and it’s not that late, but I was on a red-eye with wailing twins behind me the whole way.”

  Austin commiserated with a groan.

  “Was missin’ my killer seat on the C-17 surrounded by a dozen annoying teammates,” Cooper said. “What’s going on?”

  “Just checking in.”

  “So far, everything on her résumé is golden,” Cooper told him. “And I can’t find anyone to say one bad thing about her. It’s become my mission to get at least one. At this point, I’d be happy with ‘she’s a bitch when she’s on the rag.’ I can’t get anything. It’s annoying as hell.”

  Okay, so he wasn’t insane. “
Here too. She’s just…”

  “Too good to be true.” Cooper nailed it.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, then rubbed his face. “Here’s to hoping we’re wrong.”

  “Roger that.” Cooper laughed. “Would be nice to have some eye candy around that place. Getting sick of Decker’s ugly mug.”

  “Thanks, man. Keep me updated, would you?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Austin disconnected and slid his phone into the back pocket of his cargo pants. A round of laughter floated up the stairs—Bella’s, Everly’s, and a few of the guys’.

  She fit in too damn well. Excelled at everything too damn perfectly. Knew just how to snag his attention and approval.

  Calculating. That was it. Everything she did felt too precisely calculated.

  Another surge of laughter touched his ears. Austin heaved a sigh and started back down the stairs.

  Maybe he was just too fucking jaded to appreciate a good thing when he found it.

  5

  Everly scanned the pool deck and the property beyond, all dark now at nearly three a.m.

  It was her fourth day on the property. She hadn’t seen much of Hix except for breakfast, dinner, and Bella’s bedtime, when he deliberately made family time a priority. And if she were honest, that made her a little edgy.

  She hadn’t had an opportunity to read his moods throughout the day or learn what was on his mind. She liked to keep her fingers on the pulse of her targets. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. She’d been entertaining the idea of putting that motto into very real practice, only Hix, unlike the men he worked with, didn’t seem to be interested in her.

  “All quiet here,” she murmured to Ian through the com in her ear. “How does it look on your end?”

  “I’ve got eight slugs, all snug in their beds.” Ian had deployed a drone with thermal mapping capabilities and thought human heat signatures looked like neon slugs. In this case, the eight slugs included the five visiting soldiers, Hix, Mirabella, and Renalda.

  She glanced at her watch just as the digital numbers glowed 3:00.

  “And we have touchdown,” Ian said. “The last guard just returned from rounds. They’re sitting down to chow. Nothing like military precision in a schedule.”

  “Ready.” Excitement hummed through her veins. “Tell me when.”

  “Roger that.” The sound of computer keys ticked over her earpiece.

  As she waited for Ian to give her the go-ahead, she eased open one of the multiple glass doors surrounding her bedroom with a barely audible shhhh of the casters rolling on metal slides. Floor-to-ceiling drapes hung on tracks all along the exterior walls, but she kept them open. Not only did she love looking out at the pool and the horizon in the distance while she slipped off to sleep, but she also liked knowing what was happening beyond her walls.

  Her crisply air-conditioned room gave way to the warm, moist night. The gentle chirp of crickets filled the air, along with a chorus of creatures she could only begin to imagine.

  “Three, two, one,” Ian said. “Cameras fifteen and eighteen just switched off. You have sixty seconds.”

  On bare feet, Everly hurried along the cement path beside the house to cross the distance before the cameras imaging that side of the house cycled back for another sweep. Nearby howler monkeys balked at her appearance, and their throaty protest scraped the silence. Everly winced at the noise, hoping it wouldn’t prompt attention. The short walk to the garage felt like it took forever even though only twenty seconds passed.

  She stepped into the cutout of the exterior, housing an air-conditioning unit, and ducked behind the device. “Secure.”

  “Those things sound like dogs with strep throat,” Ian said.

  That hit Everly funny, and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to keep the laughter in.

  “Another ten seconds…” Ian said. “Three, two, one.”

  Everly was on top of the unit with one hop. But the monkeys really didn’t like that move. A few nearby voiced their indignance.

  “This isn’t something I’d planned on dealing with,” she admitted. “Been working in civilization too long.”

  “You can’t call Syria civilization,” Ian said. “Hurry up.”

  Hix had told her the garage was strictly off-limits, which also meant it was heavily secured. She couldn’t chance tripping an alarm, so she stood on tiptoe to see over the edge of the sill. Using the flashlight on her phone, she scanned the interior. “Five vehicles.”

  “Five? How did he fit five in a two-car garage?”

  “Carefully?” she quipped before identifying the vehicles sandwiched into the space. “Two small pickups, one full-size truck, a Jeep, and a panel van.”

  “Panel what? A monkey cut you off.”

  “Van,” she repeated. She’d have to rethink sneaking around at night.

  “He’s only got one vehicle licensed to him,” Ian said. “The Jeep. You’ve got eight seconds.”

  Everly hopped to the ground and dropped behind the air conditioner as the cameras made another sweep. Her disappearance calmed the monkeys for a blessed moment. When Ian signaled all clear, she moved slowly, climbing onto the air conditioner’s housing instead of jumping. The monkeys still protested, but not as intensely.

  “Panel van, BBG-748. Full-ize truck, GHM-139.” She finished reading off all the license plate numbers just in time to hide again. “Jesus Christ, I’m beginning to think the damn monkeys are a better alarm than the infrared.”

  When the cameras cleared her area, Everly gritted her teeth and moved at a painfully slow crawl onto the metal housing to get one more look at the weaponry she’d spotted hanging on the walls.

  “Maybe a dime of subguns,” she told Ian. “Half a dozen M4s, a dozen handguns. Kevlar vests, helmets, ammunition, scopes, night vision…”

  She listed the equipment lining the walls until she had to jump into the shadows again, teeth gritted against the monkeys’ continued protest.

  “Does it look like the weapons cache of a gunrunner?” Ian asked, his tone already casting doubt on the idea.

  “Looks like a training supply storage unit.” She rested behind the metal block. “I’m going to let the monkeys calm down before I move again.”

  “Um…no,” Ian said. “You’re not. One of the guys in the bunkhouse just got out of bed.”

  “Shit.” She dropped her head back against the house. “Maybe he’s taking a leak.”

  “Only if he’s leaking out a window.”

  Everly’s heart rate spiked. Her mind pulled up the excuses she’d created for being out here if she couldn’t evade detection.

  “Head dog is stirring too,” Ian said. “Maybe the guy in the bunkhouse made a phone call. I’d brave the monkeys and get in the house, then hold firm to plausible deniability.”

  “Roger that.”

  She was caught between five special forces soldiers and one overprotective father willing to go to the ends of the earth to protect his daughter. Oh, and he was former special forces too.

  She eased to a crouch and slowly peered over the top of the air conditioner into the darkened jungle. The monkeys went insane.

  “Jesus Christ,” Ian muttered. “They can’t get much louder. Just run, Ev. Thread the needle and get out of there. Five, four, three…”

  Once the camera’s sweep completed, she eased out from behind the housing, cut a look around the corner, found the path clear, and stepped into the open.

  A throaty rumbling sound raised the hair on the back of her neck and turned her feet to stone. Her mind filled with the image of that two-hundred-pound jaguar Hix had told her about. The hair on her arms joined the hair on her neck, and everything inside her shivered.

  “Move, girl,” Ian said, his voice filled with urgency. “Ten seconds until another sweep.”

  Everly forced air into her lungs, eased into a crouch, and picked up the largest rock she could find.

  When she pushed to her feet again, the jaguar’s displeasure r
ipped through the night.

  Austin was on his feet, the Glock in his hand before his mind wrapped around the reason he’d jumped out of bed. His brain searched for the source of trouble, scanning for dreams or noises while his gaze cut around the room.

  When no threat emerged, he moved to the open door between his room and Bella’s. He found his half-pint sprawled on her twin bed, covers kicked to the ground, her pink nightgown bunched up around her belly.

  The sense of urgency-bordering-on-panic ebbed, but some kind of threat still loomed. He could feel it.

  His gaze veered toward the security overview in the middle of a short section of wall just to the right of the master bath. All the lights were green, indicating every exterior door and window in the house was intact.

  The screech of a howler monkey pulled his attention outside. The gaggle of primates were pissed off over something invading their territor—

  The roar of a jaguar pierced the double-paned security windows and skipped down Austin’s spine.

  That was it. That was the sound that had pulled him from sleep.

  He grabbed his radio from the nightstand. “Decker, report.”

  “Just an argument between jungle bunkmates, boss. The guys ran Kujo off.”

  He paused for a moment, letting that news sink in to see if it settled the rivulet of unease coursing down the center of his body. Nope. His instincts still revved on high.

  But instead of trying to explain that to Decker or send his men on a full property scan like a frightened teenager, Austin said, “Roger that,” and replaced the radio on the nightstand.

  He wouldn’t rest until he’d checked the entire house himself.

  With his Glock in hand, he moved through the darkened, quiet space on bare feet. His practiced sweep took ninety seconds. He already knew Bella was safe. After a quick check on Renalda, he crossed the kitchen and paused at the door leading to the in-law unit.

  It took only a second for him to squash the discomfort of invading Everly’s space. He turned the knob and eased the door open. He’d just peek in on her and go back to—

  His gaze landed on an empty bed, then jumped to the darkened bathroom.