“Of course I don’t want that. But neither am I going to back off trying to find out what happened to my brother for no reason—or for vague warnings. Whatever happened on that mission is going to come out at some point, John. Men lost their lives. How long do you think you can keep hiding? Someone is going to find out you are alive after this secret mission you went on that went so wrong. Wouldn’t you rather it be someone who can be fair?”
She had a point. There were stories of covert operations being kept under wraps for years—in one well-known CIA case, sixteen years—but what had happened in Russia was too big to stay hidden for long. They all knew the clock was ticking. But they needed time to figure out what had happened and who was behind it. He didn’t want her anywhere near it when this thing blew.
“Can you be fair, Brittany?” he challenged.
She looked taken aback and maybe a little hurt. “What do you mean? I’m a good reporter. I thought you believed me about what happened five years ago. I didn’t make up that story.”
“I did—I do. But I also think you have an agenda. You have been on a one-woman quest to uncover anything that smacks of a governmental cover-up since the death of your parents. The truth is always good and secrets are always bad—you never stop to consider otherwise. No matter what it costs.”
She looked furious. “That isn’t true!”
“Isn’t it? Why else were you and Brand barely on speaking terms for the past five years?”
“Because he accused me of spying on him!”
“Were you?”
She held his gaze, and despite the anger on her face, he knew he’d hurt her. “Fuck you, John.”
That was the second time he’d heard that in three days, and he didn’t like it any more this go-round. “Can you blame me for thinking that? You used information you saw in that letter in your ‘Lost Platoon of Team Nine’ articles.”
“Five years after the fact. And only after I was convinced that my brother was dead and the navy was trying to cover it up, and after I heard about Team Nine from a few women at a certain bar in Honolulu.” He must have looked surprised. “Your secret team wasn’t as secret as you thought it was—or those women weren’t as deaf and dumb as you thought they were. But some people had figured it out and heard things. And I’m not the only one stirring things up. There’s a woman in Iowa who claims to be pregnant by a SEAL who’s suddenly disappeared.” John grimaced. He’d heard about Travis’s ex from the LC. “To my point: you can’t keep things secret forever.”
“Maybe not, but I don’t want you anywhere near this when the shit hits the fan. God, you were nearly killed less than an hour ago. Someone could be targeting you. I’m not going to stand by and let you get hurt.”
She didn’t respond right away. She was studying his face in a way that made him uncomfortable. It was as if she was looking for something. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why do you care so much?”
“How can you ask that? You’re . . .” What? What was she? “Brand’s sister,” he finished.
She was a little too quiet, her gaze intense. “I don’t need a big brother, John. I haven’t had one for a long time.” She was wrong about that. “I’ve been fine on my own for a lot of years.”
“Maybe so, but I’m not going to let anything happen to you—not on my watch.” Brand had loved her more than anyone in this world—far more than she realized. John owed it to him, and watching out for her was one promise he would keep. “If you won’t go home, then I’m afraid there is only one solution.”
Her dark eyebrows darted together. “What’s that?”
“I’ll have to stay with you. Consider me your new bodyguard.”
* * *
• • •
Brittany stared at him, a lump of dread settling slowly to her gut. He had to be kidding. Please tell her he was kidding. “Bodyguard?”
John nodded. “As in never-leave-your-side, up-close-and-personal, twenty-four-seven, stick-to-you-like-glue.”
She got it, and that dread started to slide toward panic. John Donovan in her face all day and . . . night? No way. He’d drive her crazy. And not an annoyed “you’re bothering me” kind of crazy. A “you are way too good-looking, too overwhelming, and put too much testosterone in the air” kind of crazy. A “you make me think and do stupid things” kind of crazy.
God, she’d actually been wondering if the reason he’d been so upset—the reason he seemed to be so insistent—was because he cared about her. Instead it was some sort of misdirected sense of duty.
For the sake of self-preservation, she needed to get rid of him. She might not be worried about falling in love with him again, but she couldn’t say the same thing about falling into bed with him again. The guy was sex on a stick. “Don’t you think you are overreacting just a little? That guy could have been anyone. There is no reason—”
She was interrupted by the sound of her phone blasting the theme song from Hawaii Five-0. It had seemed like a good idea when she’d done it, but that famous riff had quickly lost its charm. She was too busy—or lazy—to pick a new ringtone. “Sorry. I’d better check this.”
Grateful for the reprieve to clear her head (a common issue when John was hogging all the airspace around her), she dug around in her bag until she found her phone. Pulling it out, she frowned, seeing that it was from her coworker Nancy. She’d given her the number for emergencies.
“Hey,” she said, answering it. “What’s up?”
“I just had a call from the police,” Nancy said, clearly upset. “They were trying to find you, and the landlord told them where you worked.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Your apartment was broken into last night and ransacked.”
Brittany forgot how close John must be watching her and paled. “Ransacked?”
“Badly,” Nancy said. “Cushions and mattress torn apart with a knife. That kind of thing. And . . .”
Brittany could tell she was trying not to alarm her, but the hesitation wasn’t helping. “And?”
“There was a message on your bedroom mirror written in lipstick. It said, ‘Stop or die.’”
Ten
Brittany swallowed, but her mouth was dry and the lump wasn’t going away easily.
Lipstick on a mirror? Not very original. It was easier to think about that rather than the fact that someone had been in her house, going through her things.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“Isn’t that enough?” Nancy said. “You’ve obviously pushed the wrong buttons with your Lost Platoon articles. It has to be about that, don’t you think?”
Brittany was aware of John watching her, and from his ever-darkening expression, it was clear he’d gotten the gist of the conversation. There was going to be no getting rid of him now. After what had just happened, this was too much of a coincidence. Even for her.
When she didn’t answer right away, Nancy added, “The police want to talk to you. You need to call them as soon as you can.”
“I will. Thanks for the call, Nancy. I really appreciate it, but I’m going to have to call you back.”
Brittany hung up without waiting for a response. She dropped the phone back into her bag before turning to face John.
His expression wasn’t as dark as it had been a few moments ago, but the look of icy control was almost worse.
“Someone broke into your apartment,” he said flatly.
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway.
“What else?” he said with deceptive calmness, although she could tell he was fighting to keep a lid on that temper she’d had no idea he had.
She filled him in on what Nancy had said. He was very still until she got to the part about the message on the mirror, and then the muscle in his jaw jumped.
She was really beginning to dread
that little muscle. It seemed to be an indication that something was about to break. Like a levee, but a whole lot worse.
Now was probably not the time to remember how she’d noticed the muscle twitch right before she’d taunted him into having sex with her. That kind of levee break and mad rush she didn’t need again.
She bit her lip, giving him a wry smile. “I guess you might have been right about the danger.”
Her attempt at placating him didn’t work. The “you think?” look he shot her was every bit as foreboding as that muscle tic.
She decided not to voice her question about whether he thought the mugging in the parking lot and the ransacking of her apartment were connected. It was obvious he thought they were. Although she wasn’t quite as convinced, it was probably too much of a coincidence not to be.
She could almost see his mind working as he turned over the information in his head. “You said the guy who attacked you tried to grab your bag?”
She nodded.
“They must not have found whatever they were looking for in your apartment. So, what were they looking for? What do they think you have?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “How did you end up in Norway?”
She hesitated. As a reporter, it was almost reflexive to refuse to give information about a source.
He seemed to read her mind, and that muscle jumped again. But all in all, he was doing a remarkable job of holding his temper in check under the circumstances. Somehow she didn’t think he would appreciate a gold star at this moment.
“Secrets are bad, remember?” he said. “You can’t decry cover-ups one minute and then clam up another. If I’m going to keep you safe and try to figure out who wants to shut you up, I need to know what we are up against. You have to tell me what you know and who told you. I’m not going to steal your story. I’m trying to help you.”
He was right. The instinct to protect her story and her source was misplaced here. Besides, she didn’t even know who her source was to protect.
She went back to her bag and retrieved the envelope. As she handed it to him, she told him how she’d acquired it.
He flipped through the documents quickly, pausing when he reached the deployment orders. His mouth thinned; obviously he didn’t like what he was seeing.
When he was finished, he handed it back to her and asked her to go back over the drop again, trying to elicit more details. But she’d told him everything she could think of.
“You didn’t see the driver?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“But you think it was a woman in a military uniform in the backseat?”
Brittany nodded. “Yes, but other than the fact that there was gold embroidery on the sleeve, I couldn’t see anything distinguishing about it. My friend is looking into the car, but she’s hit a roadblock.”
“The same friend that gave you the e-mail to track me down?”
She nodded.
“I’ll put my people on it, too,” he said. “But whoever gave you that deployment order was high up. Only a handful of people had access to that kind of information.”
She’d figured as much and resisted the opportunity to question him about the op. She didn’t think he was in any mood to share more information with her. But she hadn’t given up hope on convincing him. Not by a long shot. Especially if he wasn’t leaving, which she suspected was off the table for now.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that at the moment. But fear for her life should take precedence over fear of falling into bed again.
Should.
“Do you think that is what they are after?” she asked.
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “It could be that they want to know what you have because they think you are getting too close.” He held her gaze. “Or it could be that your stories are drawing too much attention and they just want to shut you up.”
* * *
• • •
From the way she paled, John knew he’d made his point and that she was finally taking this seriously. He didn’t like scaring her, but she needed to understand the situation. People who were willing to take out a platoon of Navy SEALs weren’t going to balk at getting rid of a reporter. And even if the people trying to kill her weren’t the same as those who had tried to kill him, there were plenty who were interested in keeping the story out of the papers. A story that might force the US past the brink of war that it was teetering on with Russia.
In any case, John wasn’t going to stick around to find out who was behind the attack on Brittany. If that guy on the motorcycle had friends and they came after them, John was going to be seriously undermanned.
Besides, this place was making him twitchy. There were too many people around Vaernes who might recognize him. The platoon hadn’t been at the air station long and they’d kept to themselves, but they weren’t invisible, and it wasn’t inconceivable that some people around the base might remember him.
He was pretty sure Nils had. But he was also pretty sure Nils understood what he did, which might keep him quiet. He’d definitely bought the jealous-boyfriend-after-an-argument bit—which might not have been as much of a bit as John would have liked.
“Pack your bags,” he said. “We need to get out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know yet, but we can’t stay here.”
“You think that guy has been following me and knows where I’m staying?”
His nonanswer was answer enough.
She packed in record time, which wasn’t surprising as she simply shoved the mess of clothes and shoes flowing out of the suitcase back into it.
After putting on a pair of hiking shoes—the tennis- shoe kind, not the boot kind—she went into the bathroom to retrieve her toiletries. As it was still raining, he was glad to see she had a lightweight raincoat, which was more practical than the umbrella she’d had before.
In an impressive five minutes, they were heading down the fire escape staircase. Exiting into the back parking lot of the hotel, he stopped her from going to her car. “Leave it.”
“I have to return it; it’s a rental.”
“You can call them and tell them where you left it. I don’t want to chance it.”
“Chance what? Do you think they are out there?” She looked around the empty parking lot as if someone was going to jump out. It wasn’t completely dark, but it was about as dark as it would get.
He shook his head. “Not right now, but they could be tracking you.”
She obviously didn’t like the sound of that and made a face.
“Don’t we have to get your things from your hotel?” she asked.
“I don’t have a hotel.” He hadn’t been planning to stick around. “I left a bag at the train station.”
Which was where they were headed after he took care of a few things that he hoped would send anyone tracking her in the wrong direction.
It was a quick walk to the airport from the hotel, but her large wheelie suitcase slowed them down a bit. Finally, he grew impatient with her bumping over curbs and picked it up by the carry handle.
“Christ, what do you have in here, rocks?”
She rolled her eyes. “Said every guy everywhere. I wanted to be prepared for all kinds of weather.” She looked him up and down in the darkness. “I guess you aren’t as strong as you look.”
He gave her a wicked grin. “Strong enough for whatever you have in mind, sweetheart.”
She laughed, totally impervious to any suggestiveness. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Five years ago she used to blush when he said things like that to her. She’d grown up. But that wasn’t all. He had the distinct feeling she’d outgrown him as well, and that didn’t sit well.
“Pack mule is good enough for now,” she said.
“I’ll remember that,” he said dryly.
But this pack mule was about to go on strike.
She wasn’t happy when they arrived at the airport and he told her what he wanted to do. “I can’t fit what I need in a backpack and a small duffel!”
“It was the biggest bag they had,” he said patiently. The Vaernes airport shop didn’t exactly have a broad selection of travel gear. He’d been lucky to find the packable nylon duffel. They could be talking plastic shopping bag. “We need to move around fast, and this”—he indicated the large suitcase—“isn’t going to cut it. Besides, sending your bag back home will keep them off our tracks.”
“But what am I supposed to wear? I don’t even know where we are going.”
“Keep it casual and comfortable. You can always layer things.” He grinned and tried not to laugh at her expression. She seemed more upset at the idea of getting rid of her luggage than she had been at the news of her apartment being ransacked. Maybe she was a little more girlie than he realized, although he didn’t think she’d appreciate him pointing that out right now. “I have a few extra shirts you can borrow if you need them.”
She scoffed sharply. “Not a chance. I’ve seen your shirts. I don’t do hideous Hawaiian.”
He grinned. He missed his shirts. But they did tend to attract attention. He shrugged. “Not everyone can pull it off.”
“John, not even you can pull off garish bright orange sunsets, turquoise oceans, and lime green palm trees.”
He chuckled and was relieved to see her bend down and open the suitcase to start moving a few things into the new duffel. He could hear her mumbling under her breath the whole time and was pretty sure he didn’t want to know what she was saying.
After about five minutes of her putting something in only to take it out and exchange it for something else a few minutes later, he said, “How much longer is this going to take?”
And how many pairs of jeans did one person need? The ones she was wearing were fine.
More than fine.
She gave him a good death glare that didn’t quite kill the surge of lust at thinking about her ass in those jeans again—or out of those jeans, for that matter.
Off the Grid Page 14
