Happily Ever Ninja (Knitting in the City #5)

by Penny Reid

  I tried lying down on the top cot, resting, handing over my husband’s fate to a team of Special Forces who didn’t know him. People who didn’t know me or our children, and how much we needed Greg. I tried. It didn’t work. I couldn’t turn my brain off.

  “I can hear you thinking,” Marie’s sleepy voice pulled me out of my chaotic musings. “It’s as loud as Sandra’s snoring.”

  I smiled wanly at the dark, carpeted ceiling. “I’m wearing your clothes.”

  “I’ll file that statement under things I don’t mind hearing from my girlfriends, but I wouldn’t be thrilled about hearing from a boyfriend.”

  “Wait. I thought you dated a cross-dresser in college and thought it was sexy?”

  “I did. But I don’t want some man stretching out my favorite pair of yoga pants and sexy underwear. I don’t care if he’s wearing a thong, it just better not be mine.”

  I smirked. Even so, the curve of my mouth felt sad. Everything about me felt sad, forlorn, helpless. I hated the helplessness most of all.

  “What am I going to do, Marie? How can I just sit here and do nothing?”

  I heard her exhale, but she said nothing for a long time. I pressed the base of my palms into my eye sockets and rubbed.

  “Sometimes,” she started, stopped, exhaled again. “Sometimes doing nothing is what we’re called to do, I think. Does that make sense? In any relationship, sometimes we play the lead, and sometimes we follow.”

  “He left me,” I said to the dark, and it sounded like a confession. I added, speaking mostly to myself, “He’s always leaving me.”

  “Why does he leave you?”

  “He would say he left me for my own good, to protect me. But I don’t need his protection.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then asked, “What do you need? From him?”

  I huffed a laugh. “You mean other than for him to live so I can murder him?”

  “Yes. Other than that. I know you love him, but what do you need from him?”

  So much, I wanted to say. So much more than he is giving me.

  Instead I said, “Why do you ask?”

  “Because he said something this morning—”

  “Wait, you talked to Greg too?”

  “No. I listened in on his call with Alex and that CIA prick, Spenser Banks—what a fuckwad. What’s his deal anyway?”

  I ignored her dislike for my former handler. “What did Greg say?”

  “When Alex asked Greg why he didn’t want you to help move the money and accompany him and Dan to Lagos, Greg said, ‘I need her much more than she needs me.’”

  I closed my eyes, a heavy weight settling on my chest, my eyes stinging. “How can he be so clueless?”

  “Have you told him?”

  “What?” I asked, my throat dry and my stomach in knots.

  “That you need him?”

  I started to say, Yes, all the time. But then I stopped myself. Because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d admitted to my husband, I need you.

  I remembered the last time he’d said it, just this morning at the hospital in Enugu. Before that, he’d said it at least twice while we were in Chicago. In fact, he was always saying it. This realization made me feel miserable.

  Finally, I answered Marie’s question. “Not enough. I haven’t told him enough.”

  After my admission, we were silent for a time. I promised myself the first words out of my mouth to Greg the next time I saw him were going to be, I need you.

  “I think David left me because I was too independent,” Marie said. She was referring to her ex-boyfriend. If memory served, they’d been together for seven or more years. He’d left her last spring after she wrote an article about body builders and their small penises.

  “Some men need that, I think. They need a woman to need them, depend on them for all decisions, crave their approval and praise.”

  “Perhaps some men prefer to nurture rather than be nurtured.” My offered thought was an echo of Greg’s earlier wisdom.

  “Exactly. David was a nurturer. I didn’t need constant nurturing.”

  “Because you’re a nurturer, too?”

  “Maybe . . .”

  “What do you need, Marie?”

  “I don’t know . . . I know what I’d like, but I have no idea what I need.” She sighed loudly and the cot below me creaked. We were quiet for a moment before Marie blurted, “I was worried about you, Fiona.”

  I smiled into the darkness. “I was worried about you, too. Thank you for coming down here, for all your help.”

  “I don’t know how much I’ve helped.” She laughed self-deprecatingly and then stretched. “Can we hug now? I think I need a hug.”

  I was already climbing down from the top bunk when I answered, “Sure.”

  Marie stood and we reached for each other, nearly bumping noses. I was soon enveloped in the soft warmth of my friend’s embrace. She always gave high-quality hugs—lingering tight squeezes with her entire body. I leaned into her, recognizing almost at once how badly I needed to be held by someone who loved me.

  A decision formed and was instantaneously ratified by my brain. I would stop rationing my needs and wants. I would no longer use cake to rationalize calling Janie for a car when faced with blizzard conditions. If I needed a hug, I would announce to my people, I need a hug! And then I would accept a hug. Or perhaps several hugs.

  And I wouldn’t feel guilty about it.

  Just as Marie and I separated, but before I could thank her for the embrace, a succinct knock sounded on the narrow door leading to the surveillance space.

  Dan stuck his head into the room, saying in a rush, “Fiona, they’ve arrived, Greg is talking.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Dear Wife,

  I'm sorry I'm the worst. I love you.

  <3 -Your Husband

  Letter

  Alabama, USA

  Married 3.5 years

  ~Present Day~

  *Fiona*

  “What happened to the transmission?” I glanced between Dan and Quinn. “Why can’t I hear anything?”

  “We just had it,” Quinn cursed, fiddling with the frequency settings.

  “All we’re getting is static.” Sitting next to me, Marie pulled the headphones from her ears.

  As soon as Dan had made his announcement, Marie and I had sprinted from the room where we’d been resting and grabbed for the headphones, but were met with only the sound of crackles and hissing.

  “It’s Banks. He’s scrambling the feed.” Quinn was seething, rubbing his forehead with intense frustration.

  “What? Why?”

  “He didn’t want us involved in the first place.” Dan said this mostly to Marie. “I’m surprised he let us listen in as long as he did.”

  “Can’t Alex fix it? Can’t we get him back?” Marie asked.

  “I’m messaging Alex now.” Dan had already whipped out his phone.

  Just then we heard a series of shots over the feed followed by a short pause, then more rapid gunfire, quick popping of several semiautomatic weapons being discharged. Each shot sent a jarring spike of panic down my neck to the base of my spine, chasing away the day’s aches and pains with a surge of restless adrenaline.

  I paced back and forth in the tight space of the surveillance area, barely conquering my desire to run outside and jump into the fray. I needed to think, to consider. Rushing into an active combat zone would be stupid at best, madness at worst.

  “Hey, Alex. Are you hearing what we’re hearing? Because we have nothing.” Dan swiveled toward me and stared unseeingly forward, listening to our friend on the other end.

  Quinn stood and crossed to stand next to me, hovering at my shoulder as we both watched and listened to Dan’s side of the conversation. “Can’t you get it back?”

  Quinn made a sound in the back of his throat, a frustrated sound, then said, “I didn’t want to say this earlier, but I don’t trust Banks.”

  My attention moved to the big man next t
o me. “Why?”

  Quinn’s ice blue eyes slid to mine. “He doesn’t like your husband.”

  “He doesn’t. But whether he likes him or not isn’t relevant when there’s a job to do.”

  “It should be . . .” Quinn’s tone and expression grew assessing. “Why doesn’t he like Greg?”

  “They met once or twice when I was in service and just never got along.” I shrugged. “Greg can be abrasive and Banks plays it close to the vest. Greg was always trying to get a rise out of him.”

  “That’s not it. I think Banks is envious.”

  “Envious of Greg? No, as far as I know, Spenser never married, has no kids. He’s a career soldier, not a family man. The CIA is his first love.”

  “Or,” Quinn’s piercing glare moved over my face, “the CIA is his second love.”

  Nonplussed, I gaped at his evaluation of the situation. But before I could spare a minute to think on this statement, Quinn turned away and pulled out his phone, swiping his thumb across the screen to accept a call.

  “Hello?”

  I scanned his expression for any sign of who he was speaking to. Seeing the intensity of my anxiety, Quinn lifted his chin and answered my unspoken question.

  “Oluwa and Zaki upfront, the drivers. Special Forces guys have entered the building.”

  “Can they show us?”

  Quinn nodded once, addressing his next question to his phone. “Can you turn on video?”

  Marie, Quinn, and I were soon huddled around Quinn’s screen, watching with tense expectation the blurry video of soldiers dressed in black against the darkening sky. As day became night the Special Forces agents would become invisible. But the bright strobes of light in tandem with the sound of gunfire gave away their approximate location.

  Minutes felt like hours.

  Eventually there was a pause in both sound and any visible activity.

  I held my breath.

  I was aware of Dan somewhere behind me, still on the phone with Alex, and Marie’s hand in mine, our fingers threaded together.

  Cautious relief had me exhaling in a whoosh when several dark shadows were visible carrying what looked like injured hostages out of the building. I tried to pinpoint Greg, but it was no use. Dusk had descended. It was too dark. The figures were too blurry.

  “Fiona.”

  I turned from Quinn’s phone and faced Dan. “What?”

  “Alex has Banks on the line for you, on the con.” Dan lifted his chin to the headphones I’d discarded earlier.

  With shaking fingers, I brought them to my ears, adjusting the microphone piece. “Spenser, it’s Fiona. What’s happening?”

  “Why did you come? I told you not to come to Nigeria.” He sounded oddly angry.

  I didn’t have time for his random and aggressive show of feelings, not when I had no idea what was going on with my husband. “Where is Greg, Spenser? Did you get him out?”

  “We have the rest of the hostages.”

  “And Greg?”

  The line was quiet for several seconds. Each moment that passed sent my heart rate doubling. “Spenser? What about Greg?”

  “He’s still in there.” Just as he said this, a single shot rang out. Spenser rushed to add, “We couldn’t reach him.”

  My stomach and throat switched positions and red filled my vision; I spoke without thinking, “You goddamn sonofabitch.”

  “Fiona, he’s holding his own. He still might make it out.”

  “Send your team back in.”

  “I can’t do that, not for one person. They wouldn’t be able to distinguish his friendly fire from hostile. You understand.”

  “Spenser . . .”

  Quinn tapped me on the shoulder and showed me the video feed. Spenser and his Special Forces vehicles were retreating, two of Contee’s Humvees were in pursuit. He was leaving.

  My ex-handler’s voice turned to steel. “It’s not going to happen. He’s on his own. You understand.”

  “No. I do not understand. But you understand this: if I ever see you again I am going to rip your entrails out of your ass. Then I’m going to cut off your balls and feed them to your cat. Do you hear me? Do you fucking understand that, you dickless jackass?”

  “Fi—”

  I flipped the com switch off then slammed my headphones on the counter, flexing my fingers and marching away from the communications terminal toward the small weapons locker I’d spied earlier.

  I felt rather than saw Dan tentatively approach. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to go get him.” I selected a SIG MK25 and checked the chamber. “Where are the extra magazines for this?”

  “Fiona—”

  “Don’t try to stop me.”

  “Wasn’t going to.” Dan reached for a .45 and passed me two extra magazines for my SIG. “Let me suit up.”

  ***

  Marie and Quinn remained in the converted tanker and provided what tactical support they could manage.

  Purposeful or not, Spenser’s abandonment of the building had drawn most of the guards away. We needed eyes inside the building, but the best we could manage was a heat signature feed and a quick survey of the building’s schematics, both courtesy of Alex. Based on what we could hastily discern, Greg was on the top floor, backed into a corner. His assailants were likely waiting for him to run out of ammunition. They still needed him alive.

  Two minutes later, with a hasty plan of action defined, Dan and I were on the move. We approached from the opposite side Spenser’s team had left. I easily scaled the fence and offered Dan a hand over. He was heavy and my arms were tired, but it didn’t matter. He seemed to need the small amount of leverage and no more.

  I liked Dan. I didn’t want him hurt. So I’d agreed he could join me if and only if he provided cover. He reluctantly agreed. The thing was, Dan was big, strong, and would be great in a fistfight. But I was little, light, and great in a stealth attack.

  We entered the bottom floor of the warehouse, quickly navigating through the maze of pallets leading to a central, exposed stairway. I bounced soundlessly up the steps while Dan stayed behind, providing cover until I reached the top. Then I provided his cover as he mounted the steps, his shoes like a hammer on the metal slats.

  I motioned for him to follow. My feet were silent on the linoleum floor, but it didn’t matter. Bursts of gunshots pierced the air. I was grateful for the sound. If shots were still being fired then Greg was still alive.

  We encountered no hostiles on our route to the room where Greg was being held, therefore it didn’t take us long to reach it. I peeked through the glass window in one of the swinging doors, confirming the heat signatures I’d counted earlier. Greg was swapping bullets with seven combatants, and all of them had lousy aim.

  Or, I realized, they wanted him alive.

  Of course they did. He knew where the money was buried.

  But then, so did Banks. And now Banks had the rest of the hostages and could retrieve the money no problem, looking like a big hero . . . he’d probably get a promotion.

  I was definitely going to remove him from his ball sack at some point.

  Greg shot twice at a cluster of three guards. I gave Dan a sign to proceed as I skipped away and toward one corner of the hallway.

  Dan pushed the swinging door open three inches with his shoulder, aimed, and fired. I heard several combatants fall to the ground immediately, and one yell out what I assumed to be a curse. Dan let the door swing shut just in time. As soon as he closed the door a rain of bullets pounded into it on the other side.

  I jumped and started to climb the wall leading to the AC vent above. Heavy footsteps, frantic shouting, the sound of metal against metal reverberated from behind the partitions.

  And then Greg’s voice calling, “They have you surrounded and your comrades are off on a goose chase. Surrender.”

  The earsplitting rata-tat-tat of a semiautomatic elicited an involuntary flinch, but I used the sounds of the machine gun as cover for removing
the vent grate, pulling myself up and into the ventilation system.

  A spray of ammunition, shouting, and furniture being moved—likely as a barricade—continued below me as I snaked through the narrow box. I wouldn’t be able to back out, and that was fine. Greg and I wouldn’t be leaving via the vent.

  What Greg apparently didn’t know, but what Dan and I could see from the building schematics, was that there was a dumb waiter—a hauling manual elevator—just ten feet from where he was trapped. It led to the first floor, close to where Dan and I had entered the building.

  Dan would continue drawing fire. Meanwhile, I would drop from the ceiling. Greg and I would escape via the chute just as Dan tossed tear gas into the holding room. Greg and I would provide cover for Dan as he descended the stairs. We would all leave together.

  Easy-peasy.

  “Almost there,” I whispered, catching sight of the top of Greg’s head through the slats of the vent; the rest of him was hidden behind a pallet of stacked cardboard boxes. A few more feet and I’d be able to drop through the next vent.

  “Fiona, I hear footsteps approaching from behind.” Dan’s voice was strained and interrupted by continuing gunfire. “I need to throw the tear gas in now. It’s now or never.”

  “Fine. Do it.” I pulled myself forward with my aching arms, then punched the vent open with the butt of my gun. “I’m dropping in now.”

  I had a mere moment to aim my drop, falling head first, flipping, and landing on my feet on top of the pallet—well, mostly on my feet. I stumbled one step back and failed my dismount.

  Greg’s face shot up and so did his weapon just as the first clanging, rolling tear gas cans sounded from behind me.

  Our eyes met.

  His registered shock.

  I leapt off the pallet.

  This time I landed the dismount.

  I turned to him.

  He faced me with wide eyes and an open mouth.

  I wanted to kiss him.

  And place him in a chokehold.

  And wrap my arms around him.

  And never let him go.

  . . . but also place him in a chokehold.