by Loye, Trish
Jake studied them both and then nodded. “The whole thing seemed a little off. That’s a rough go, man. I’m sorry.”
“It’s why I want to be there when you get Spider.”
“Copy that. You’re Q’s partner. You’ve already proven you can handle her.”
Charlie shook her head. “All that being said, I don’t need him to handle me or keep me safe.”
Cat stepped up. “You take him with you or you don’t go.”
“And you take a nap,” Jake said. “Let Dani and Gears narrow down the location.”
“Fine,” Charlie said as evenly as she could. She pointed at Jack. “But he naps too.”
Cat laughed softly. “This could be fun to watch.”
“We’ll be across the hall.” Jack turned and left without looking at her. By the time she’d caught up, he was already in her room and had taken a pillow from the bed and was stretching out on the floor not far from the door.
She sighed at the illogical move. “It’s a king-size bed.”
“Yup.”
It was ridiculous that he would sleep on the floor. They were napping. He’d already made it plain that he wasn’t interested in her. Did he think she was some kind of meek virgin who couldn’t be close to a man without swooning? She strode to the far side of the bed and lay down on top of the covers. “You can sleep on the hard floor or on the bed. We slept in a single cot together so I’m not sure why you’re getting all shy now.”
His head popped up from the side of the bed. “I didn’t think you’d want me beside you.”
“Honestly, Jack, I’m exhausted. I don’t care where you sleep.” She rolled so she faced away from him and closed her eyes. She had to force her muscles to relax, even while her brain fired thoughts left and right, like a warzone. Would he really choose the floor over being beside her? Did he think she would freak out if he was near?
The far edge of the bed depressed. Jack lay down. She had to fight the impulse to turn over and move closer. But no. She wasn’t desperate, no matter what he thought. She did relax, though. Something about having him close made her feel safe. She didn’t try to analyze it.
Exhaustion swept through her and she sank deeper into the mattress.
* * *
Jack lay beside Charlie and knew when she fell asleep. He didn’t need sleep but, like any soldier, knew that if you had a few minutes of spare time then you should make use of them. He closed his eyes. A combat nap would refresh him and yet still keep him alert.
He lay on his back, mind blank and drifting, but aware of everything around him. The bed moved. His eyes snapped open just as a warm body nestled up to him.
Ah, bollocks.
Charlie’s eyes were closed and her breathing even. She was out and wouldn’t be happy if she woke up cuddled against him. If he were a good man, he would go back to the floor and not mention this.
Her hand came to rest on his chest and he felt her breasts pressed against his arm. Blood surged, hardening him.
He’d stopped being a good man long ago.
He lifted his arm and tucked her in closer to his chest. Screw what she thought when she woke. He wouldn’t make a big production of it, but he also wasn’t giving up the pleasure of having her near. Especially since he knew that when this was over, she’d go back to her home and her team, while he’d go back to his dead-end job and isolation.
He hugged her closer and inhaled her scent before letting his eyes drift shut again.
A knock on the door made Jack sit up, his gun in hand, fully alert.
Charlie stirred, her eyes blinking open. When she saw him, they widened and she rolled away like he was a bomb set to explode. “What…”
The knock sounded again and then the door opened. “It’s Cat,” she called before she showed her face. Smart woman. He lowered his weapon while Charlie scowled at him from where she now stood on the other side of the room.
She’d put enough distance between them that it looked like they’d been doing something more than sleeping. From the way Cat’s eyebrows lifted, she wondered exactly that thing. Charlie rubbed at the back of her neck. He almost laughed, but took pity on her.
“Did you find Spider?” he asked as he checked his watch. Two hours had passed. Surprise went through him. He’d actually slept.
“We’ve found some possible locations. And we need Q to make that receiver.”
“Let’s go,” he said.
22
Charlie leaned against the window in the back seat of the car, wishing she was in the front away from the large man beside her. The hard-muscled man whose chin held a dark stubble and whose voice rasped when he first woke. It had been heavenly waking up next to him.
She clenched her jaw and looked out the window into the darkness, not seeing anything but her own faint reflection in the car window looking back at her. A frown marred her face.
She did wish she was in the front seat, but that would mean openly acknowledging her desire to be away from him and the fact that he bothered her. And bother her he did. But she didn’t want anyone to know that, least of all him. She didn’t need him to apologize again. She didn’t want his pity.
It didn’t make any sense, her logical side argued. He couldn’t have been acting the whole time. He cared for her. So why was he pushing her away? But her emotional side was too hurt to listen. He’d rejected her. More than once. Told her it was only adrenaline.
But actions did speak louder than words sometimes.
She almost growled at herself. She was going round and round. Time to put this aside.
“Second location coming up on the right,” Marc said.
She and Jack were in a car with Cat and Marc, checking out locations north and east of London. They had a list of five locations that drew more than their share of power and had the right distance from the city.
The first house had been a bust. It had been a sprawling three-story home. They hadn’t even had to climb the fence to do a recce. Once they’d seen the pool set up inside a glassed greenhouse, they’d known where the extra power had gone. Who had a pool in England?
They were only to confirm the location of Spider and the auction and then relay that to Jake. He and the others were coordinating backup support, as well as watching flight manifestos in case Spider had decided to hold the auction elsewhere. These locations really were a shot in the dark.
As they drove closer to the property, Charlie checked the receiver she’d hastily put together for tracking her micro-bugs. If they were within five klicks, she should know.
Nothing showed on her screen. Dammit. “I’m not getting anything from my bugs. It doesn’t look like they’re here.”
An eight-foot stone fence surrounded the property. An unmanned wrought iron gate barred the tree-lined driveway. They couldn’t see the house because of the trees. Jack rolled down his window as Marc drove past.
“There’s no lock,” he said.
“No lock on the gate?” Cat asked.
“Not that I could see,” Jack said. “And it’s unmanned.”
“Somehow I can’t see this guy leaving his front door open,” Cat said. “What’s your other gadget say, Q?”
Charlie held up her EMF detector. She’d brought it along at the last minute as a way to double-check any findings.
The detector indicated where strong electromagnetic fields were. Anything with electrical current running through it would create a field.
If what she suspected was correct and Logan had an underground lab, the field around his house should be large.
She frowned at the device. “I’ve got no readings.”
“So no one’s home,” Marc said. “Should we jump the wall to check or just move on to the next location?”
Charlie stared at the EMF detector. To have no reading meant that nothing electrical was running nearby. It meant that the house was completely dark, without any power even running into it. It would have to be completely off-grid. It would also have to be shut down to register
zero on her meter, with not even a fridge or alarm system left running. She didn’t know many people who did that. She tapped a finger on the device as she thought.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
“We need to check out this place,” she said.
“Copy that,” Marc said. He drove a bit further, turned down a road away from the house, and pulled the car off the lane.
They were about half a klick away from the stone wall and hidden from view of the house.
It was hard to see once they’d shut off the car’s headlights. Clouds and a new moon didn’t help. Charlie squinted and waited for her eyes to adjust. They stood by a group of trees, darker shadows within the shadows. Hardly any cars drove down the main road they’d been on, and none came down the one Marc had turned off.
No light came on when Marc opened the trunk and grabbed a pack, sliding it onto his back.
“This is a recce only,” Cat said to them all. “If this is the place, then we wait for Jake and the others before we make any move.”
Marc took the lead and they followed in single file through the trees at the side of the road until they made it back to the stone wall surrounding their target.
Cat and Marc, both tall, easily gripped the top of the wall and pulled themselves up, their feet braced against the rough stone so they could just peer over the top.
Jack motioned to her. “Do you need help?” he asked.
“No.” She shoved her detector into her messenger bag. She’d dressed in her black cargo pants, a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and her boots. Cat wore a black toque over her white-blond hair, but the rest of them didn’t bother since their hair was dark. Both Marc and Cat had used camo paint to darken their faces. She and Jack weren’t supposed to get close, so neither of them had put it on.
The rock wall looked to be old, but the mortar between the stone wasn’t crumbling. This wall had been built in the last couple of years. She gripped a stone above her head that jutted out slightly and jumped. She used the stone as leverage to get her hands to the top. She planted her feet on some uneven stone and pulled her head up so she could peek over the wall. A second later and Jack was next to her.
Five acres of field stretched out before them. The only trees on the property lined the driveway near the gate, conveniently blocking the view from there. A traditional manor house centered the estate. No light flowed from the windows of the two-story stone house.
Behind it stood a large building the size of a small, one-story warehouse. It had three garage doors, but if it was a garage then it looked like it could hold six cars. She couldn’t see much beyond that.
“I don’t see anything unusual,” Marc said. “Besides the big-ass garage.”
“I should be getting some kind of reading from the house,” Charlie said.
“What if it’s abandoned?” Marc said.
Jack made a humming noise. “It was on our list because it had a large electrical draw from the grid.”
“Could your detector be malfunctioning?” Cat asked.
She shook her head and then realized Cat couldn’t see it from her position on the other side of Marc. “No. I double-checked it. Something is blocking any signal from the house.”
“I don’t see anyone outside,” Marc said. “But you’re right, Charlie. Something doesn’t feel right.” He dropped down. “I want to check it out.”
They all did the same and Marc opened his pack and pulled out equipment. He handed out EDGE NVGs to everyone. Night-vision goggles usually either picked up on thermal signatures or amplified the tiniest amount of light. Theirs did both. Wearing them would be like seeing everything in green-tinted daylight.
Marc, Jack, and Cat put on their goggles and easily looked over the wall. Charlie took hers and tried to slip the goggles on. It had two straps running over the top of her head, plus one across her forehead and one under her chin.
Whoever had last used her pair must have used them with a helmet she decided as the goggles fell from her eyes down her nose. She pulled it off and tightened different straps, yanking at them, frustrated that the others were already surveying the area. She pulled it onto her head again and it was still loose. She almost growled. And then Jack was there, his hands batting hers out of the way. “Let me.”
She stood still while he worked. “I’ve only ever played in the lab with these,” she confessed.
“No worries,” he said. He pulled them down over her face and instantly the world was awash in green. He and the others showed up as bright green people against the darker green and black background of the stone wall and grass.
She could have used these on the hike to the wall.
Jack turned and leapt back up to peer over the top of the wall. She followed and then turned her focus to the field and house in front of her.
“Two o’clock,” Jack whispered.
She turned her head slightly to the right and sucked in a silent breath. A man stood no longer hidden in the shadows of the trees. He was a brighter green than the black of the tree he stood beside. He held a rifle of some sort in his hands.
“Far side of the house, by the drainpipe,” Jack said next.
Another guard.
“Eleven o’clock,” Jack said. “You’ll only see his head low to the ground. It’s either a bunker or he’s got a ghillie suit that disguises heat signatures.”
Charlie knew that a ghillie suit was a camouflage suit that snipers wore. They tended to be burlap bases with natural grasses and brush of the area stuck into it. Most men who wore them ended up looking like swamp creatures, but they certainly worked if you stayed in one spot.
Charlie studied the area slightly to the left of the house. Then she spotted the brighter green that must have been the man’s face. He had a perfect view of the driveway.
Jack pointed out two more hidden along the back wall.
They all jumped down.
“Marc and I will call it in and then recce the area,” Cat said. She nodded at Charlie and Jack. “You two go wait by the car for the others. We’ll keep in touch over the comms.”
Wait by the car? Charlie may have been a bit out of her element, but she didn’t want to get relegated to the sidelines. Jack could certainly help, but he’d been tasked with guarding her. She wanted him closer if Marc and Cat needed him.
“Jack and I could wait closer to the front gate. The property across from it is on a hill. We could watch from a higher vantage point across the road and let you know if we see anything,” she said.
Cat conferred with Marc and then nodded. “Okay. You can be overwatch. But you’re not to engage for any reason. Just observe and let us know if you see anything unusual.”
“Wilco,” Charlie said.
She and Jack kept their NVGs on, crossing the road parallel to the lane in front of the house. They crept through a field with a low wall of piled stones, this one only four feet high, the rocks placed almost haphazardly.
They used the wall as shield, and had to stay low as they walked. Charlie followed Jack as he picked his way through the tall grass.
The field sloped upward and they climbed silently. Cat and Marc spoke occasionally to each other on the comms, but she and Jack just listened. They wouldn’t speak unless absolutely necessary.
Jack made a hand signal for her to wait. There were no trees close by, so they crouched behind the wall. He very carefully lifted a few of the top rocks off one spot so they could peek through without revealing the tops of their heads.
They could see most of the property from where they knelt. The back was cut off from view by the house and garage, but otherwise this was a good location. Charlie settled in to listen and watch.
The guards didn’t move. Marc and Cat circled the property on the outside of the fence.
“There are no cameras anywhere,” Cat said. “Does that seem odd to you, Q? Why would he just rely on human guards?”
“It doesn’t make much sense,” Charlie said. “He’s too smart not to have more defenses. We ne
ed more information.”
“The guards are moving,” Cat said sharply. “Wait out.”
Charlie didn’t speak as they waited to see what would happen next. The guards left their posts and jogged to the back of the house out of view. Jack pointed out where the barely visible man on the front lawn had been. “He’s gone,” he whispered. “Must have been a bunker that he ducked into.”
“What the hell?” Cat said. “It seems completely unprofessional for all the guards just to leave at once.”
“Maybe it’s shift change, Valkyrie,” Marc said to Cat over the line, using her code name. “We should take advantage. We need to confirm whether this is the place or not.”
There was a pause, then Cat came back on. “Agreed. Let’s get in and get out. Moving now.”
Charlie saw one green figure and then another leap over the stone wall on the east side. Cat and Marc. They held their rifles up and raced toward the house.
A slight whine filled the air. Charlie tensed. There was a pop and then all was silent again.
Marc and Cat stopped running and dropped to the ground. Both touched their heads.
“Are they taking off their NVGs?” she whispered.
Jack sucked in a breath. “Yes.” He touched his throat mic. “Valkyrie, this is Blackjack, over.”
There was no response. He repeated it and was met with only silence. “Fuck. Their comms are down. This is like what happened to my men.”
Below, the two figures conferred on the grass. Cat looked toward where Jack and Charlie were located and tapped her ear. She wouldn’t be able to see them in the dark, but had to know that if they had NVGs then they could see her. “Cat confirms. No comms.”
No comms, and they’d taken off their NVGs.
“He used a small EMP device,” Charlie said. “He’s fried their equipment. It’s why the guards went inside. The house must be shielded. That’s why I couldn’t get a reading off it with the EMF detector.”
Marc and Cat got up and moved again toward the house, though slower this time.
