Cold Red

by Fiona Quinn

  Or, she could have just as easily disappeared.

  Finley didn’t know what the FBI had on Zelda Fitzgerald. He didn’t know to what extent the Zorics went to make Anna’s cover air tight.

  A lot of ifs.

  One thing he didn’t wonder about was that Anna was straight-up heroic and fighting on America’s side. His side.

  “What I’m most worried about,” Anna was saying as she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, “is if my cover with the Zorics is blown,” she glanced over at him then focused back on the road, “I need to get back to Slovakia and in tight with the family. So as far as I’m concerned, I’m going to keep my roles exactly as they were when you all flash banged me. The FBI was arresting Zelda Fitzgerald for some reason. SIC was trying to kill Zelda Fitzgerald for some reason. Anastasia Senko is trying to get back to Washington in her Zelda-Fitzgerald-does-the-town clothes to pass a message.” She paused. “It’s still not too late to get to that party. It’s not until tomorrow night. They were moving me in early because of the weather and I needed a new gown. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that the Zorics set Johnathan up for a fall and were trying to protect me. When I get to Washington, I’ll check in and see what vibes I pick up in my follow up with my handler.”

  “I hope that’s true, that the Zorics were protecting you by getting you out of West Virginia. In a hypothetical that says the Zorics realize you’re a spy, it’ll mean a change of identity and a case file with the Witness Protection Program. Russia and the Zoric family, neither one would be willing to let you go. It wouldn’t matter what you know or don’t know. It’s more a matter of setting bad precedent. If you spy you die. Sorry, but you already knew that.” As he said that aloud, cold washed through Finley’s system. That wasn’t hyperbole. The Zorics knew her and her family. Accepting this assignment took balls of steel.

  Anna would have to be very careful in how she extricated herself. And, unless she changed her identity, there would a be a forever hook attached to her that they could reel in at a whim. It would put everyone in her orbit in danger, always.

  He decided not to say anything else. He’d let Anna decide what she wanted to tell him and what she needed to keep close to the vest. She was, after all, on a mission.

  “Someone with power called for my murder,” Anna said. “On Mulvaney’s phone, one of the texts from ‘Him’ said, ‘Watch Zelda with an eagle eye. Kill her if she tries to escape. She’s the wild card in this.”

  “Mulvaney agreed to that?”

  “She typed back, ‘yes, sir.’”

  Finley was thinking back to the bathroom scene when Mulvaney had seemed pissed that he was intervening. He’d assumed Mulvaney didn’t like that he was giving orders to a woman about another woman’s using the bathroom, and he was over-stepping norms or boundaries.

  Yeah, something had seemed off then.

  He’d fixed his attention on making sure Zelda didn’t run and let Mulvaney’s reactions go. That was a mistake. Not that his focusing on it harder would have changed the trajectory or outcome.

  “First, you should know,” Anna said. “I was ordered by SIC, and was given the okay from my AWG commander, to escape and evade if the feds ever came a knocking. SIC command stipulated that under no circumstances should I allow myself to be imprisoned.”

  “Escape would be kind of hard in shackles and cuffs.” Finley sniffed. “I wonder if SIC told everyone to escape and evade or if those orders were just for you. That would make a difference.”

  “Standing orders for SIC members when it comes to federal authorities.” Anna shot him a look, then pressed a little harder on the gas pedal. “You knew I was going to run, and you kept taking away my escape plans. It pissed me off at the time. After I read the Mulvaney order, I saw that your intervening saved me from Mulvaney’s bullets. Twice. Thank you.”

  “Line of duty, ma’am,” Finley said. He was rewarded with a snort of laughter. “But wild card means something,” Finley pressed.

  “A wild card is SIC code for an infiltrator – a traitor to their cause. Mulvaney wouldn’t know that. A wild card was someone who was giving them up to the feds. We were always on the lookout for any wild cards. The joker who thought they could take down SIC.” She paused, then whispered, “Interesting that she wasn’t ordered to kill both Johnathan and me. I guess they had a separate plan for Johnathan. In that scenario, they just needed me disposed of and Johnathan had something they needed or wanted.”

  “Do you have a guess?”

  “Yes. Actually, I do. First, I think that they needed passwords from him and routing data.”

  “Alright.” Finley let the word drift off, encouraging her to keep talking.

  “Second, if Mulvaney didn’t kill me on the road, SIC would have killed me when we got to the cabin. Either way, Mulvaney was going to be my executioner. They knew well in advance of that takedown. That’s the kicker. There’s someone with power who wanted me gone.”

  “And you think that someone is at the Asymmetric Warfare Group?”

  “I don’t know. Another question would be: Why did this someone want the FBI to kill me? My guess? If Johnathan saw me killed in front of him, he’d give them anything they wanted.”

  “When you saw Mulvaney was involved, you’d obviously assume I was, too.” Finley asked, “Do you still think that?”

  She drove in silence.

  She had every right to question him. He was riding Anna’s coattails back to civilization. He could have been using her for the help she was giving him and then would hand her right over to the bad guys. He could see that scenario as plausible.

  She had kept the weapons, which meant she had the lethality in her hands alone.

  In his state, as long as she kept the guns from him, there would be no contest to who would win if he was to try to take her down.

  Hell, even without the guns, she’d win any battle. He could barely stay upright.

  In the silence, Finley fast forwarded through the time they’d been together from point of contact at Johnathan’s house to this moment here. There was no reason for Anna to believe that he only wanted good things for her – wanted her to be safe. His actions and inactions could be read as good-guy actions or could just as easily be read as bad-guy actions.

  It all came down to her gut.

  What was her gut telling her about him?

  He was no angel, he wouldn’t exactly be putting out heart-of-gold vibes. And she knew about his past with Lacey. At least the public part of that spectacle.

  With a deep inhale, Anna offered him an answer. “When you were passed out at the accident, I did some calculating. I figured that if you had been in on Mulvaney’s role, she wouldn’t have needed the ruse with the phone and the map. You’d both be on the same page. You would have facilitated my escape back on our bathroom break. If Johnathan needed to see an act, he would have seen me running and you two stopping me. If Mulvaney had shot me, you would have been the corroborating witness. It was all by the book. Instead, you did everything in your power to keep me under your control. I decided to give you a chance to prove you weren’t involved in all this. You’ve had plenty of opportunity to take me down.”

  “Ah, so it wasn’t my rugged good looks and bright repartee that won you over?”

  She shot him a look. “‘Bright repartee’ is pushing the envelope a bit. But I did pick you out at the house specifically for your rugged good looks. I thought I remembered you from someplace. It dawned on me that you were the special agent who got your head handed to you on a plate because of your relationship with your asset Lacey Stewart.”

  Anna knew his history of using women to get to his own ends, using them even when he had feelings for them. Hello, Karma, did you come to bite me in the ass?

  “When I was deciding what to do with you after the crash, I figured that you’d probably depleted your supply of gold stars. Any step you took that was out of bounds was going to play havoc with your career. You’re playing t
he saint at the bureau now is my guess. Waiting for time to pass and your face to age, so you can get back to the field.”

  “Pretty much.” He couldn’t fault her thought processes.

  Anna huffed out a breath. “And now?”

  “For now, no AWG and no FBI since we don’t know where things went sideways,” he said.

  “You said you know Randy Lopez. We could call him. He’ll have some resources at Iniquus that might help us. Access to a computer and satellite imagery.”

  Finley thought that through. He had been involved in cases with Iniquus for the last year. He was introduced to them when Lacey hired them to secure her when he’d put her life on the line. A good decision all the way around. Iniquus was a private security force, playing on whichever government alphabet team that Uncle Sam needed them to. Their sterling reputation meant they were first to be hired in when red tape tangled up a case, and the government needed swift and professional action. And Finley had new family ties. His sister Meg had just married one of the Panther Force operators, Honey Honig.

  “Iniquus?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Finley said. “I’d feel comfortable with that. Now how are we going to do it? The FBI will have search warrants and be waiting for pings from your phone and Mulvaney’s regular cell phone. That leaves my phone and the burner phone. Obviously, the burner phone will be traced by the bad guys.”

  “I’m wary of using my phone,” she said. “That’s my Zelda Fitzgerald phone. I’d imagine at some point SIC put a tracker on it.”

  “That leaves us with Harvey’s,” Finley said. “Do you think it’s safe? 88/14 those are endemic to white nationalism. We don’t know for sure that he was specifically with SIC. It could be that the sheriff made up some story about needing to bring us in, and he has no connection.”

  “SIC has some white nationalists but not everyone is of that mindset. Different people have different reasons for swearing their allegiance. But I’m pretty confident Harvey was tied to the group. Those numbers were on his right wrist. When I was patting him down, I saw the Sparta helmet on his left.”

  “A helmet specific to SIC?”

  “It’s a logo of sorts. They think it represents racial purity, social hierarchy, and military strength.”

  “Okay. If someone could pitch their voice to sound like an eyeroll, you’ve got that down pat.”

  “I just don’t think they know the history, and so it’s pretty silly. Sparta failed to change with the times. They had an unequal distribution of wealth that meant they couldn’t maintain their military. They hated the idea of expanding citizenship, so their population declined to the point where they were just outnumbered. The things that Sparta thought made them strong actually weakened them until finally, in the Battle of Leuctra, the Thebans defeated them, and Sparta lost their position.”

  “You went to a military school,” Finley said. “I can hear in your voice your prepping for a military history exam.”

  “VMI, I preferred computers and communications systems, to be honest.”

  Finley let out a low whistle. “You certainly like to break down barriers. I think I remember VMI being one of the last if not the last military school to let women into their hallowed halls.”

  “Yep.”

  “And then you went for your Ranger tab.”

  “Once you’ve breached a door, you have a better idea how it’s done. Now focus. We need to make some decisions. Our fuel tank is getting low. We need to pull up a GPS and find a gas station. I’m thinking we use Harvey’s phone. Look at his car registration, where’s he from?”

  Finley popped the glove compartment, pulled out the registration, and then worked to find the angle where he could see the words clearly enough to read them. “Keplinger Hollow.”

  “Yeah, he came in for the FBI hunt. He’s not important enough to be monitored. Just make it fast.”

  “Alright.” Finley powered the phone on, did a quick search and turned it back on airplane mode. “We’re six miles to a gas station. It’s straight up this highway if it’s open. I’d give that a fifty-fifty probability.”

  “Do you have cash? I don’t think we should use credit cards. Our commanders will be watching for transactions. I hate that I’m thinking these thoughts about either of our institutions.”

  Finley pulled out his wallet. “I’ve got seventy bucks, enough for gas and food. The bills are only slightly damp.” He sniffed them. “They are smelling a little swamp.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “We have to make it fast.”

  Finley wondered how long the sheriff would hang out at the edge of town, waiting for Harvey to drive by before he decided to escort them to town himself with Anna in cuffs. If he were in the sheriff’s shoes, he’d be too antsy to just sit in a parking lot waiting. Finley would want to go out and get eyes on the situation immediately especially knowing the skillsets Anna and Finley would have versus Harvey. If the sheriff was sitting in town when he got Harvey’s message and headed toward the highway immediately, he was probably pulling over to find out what the heck happened that Harvey was standing in the middle of the road, flagging down his car. He’d put Harvey in his back seat and be heading their way.

  Maybe they were twenty minutes ahead of the game. Possibly a little more? Every second they’d spend at that gas station was a loss of buffered space. And, there was no telling that once it was identified that they had stolen a car that there weren’t others – officers or well-armed civilians – that couldn’t set up a road block ahead of them.

  “If they have a payphone, we could call Randy,” Finley said. “You know, it’s been throwing me off how much we have in common. How do you know Randy?”

  “From the Army. How do you know Randy?” Anna asked.

  “He’s my brother. Well, our family sponsored him when he came to America on a scholarship. He lived with us, and we just knitted him into our family. He fit.”

  “You’re serious right now? You call Randy Lopez your brother?”

  Finley started to chuckle at the expression on her face and stopped with a burst of pain. “I’m telling you, this whole mission and all our connections were years in the making. The universe worked darned hard to put us in the same place at the same time.”

  “You believe in that crap?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “I’ll have to ask Randy all about you. I bet he has some stories to tell.”

  “Likewise,” Finley said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Finley

  Finley and Anna had shifted gears. Finley felt it. Somehow the SUV gave them a sense of protection. They weren’t powered forward on their own legs. Their toes weren’t numb from cold. They sat in relative comfort.

  And that comfort was a mirage.

  He fought against it. But the rumble of the motor, the swish-swish of the windshield wipers, the enveloping curtain of snowflakes had a somnolent effect.

  Finley struggled to keep his eyes open.

  Anna reached out and patted his thigh, then left her hand resting there as she asked, “Finley, you still with me?”

  To be honest, not really, Finley thought. He had a sneaking suspicion that if he gave into the pull to close his eyes, and let himself pass out, he’d never wake up again. Seemed like one hell of a fight he’d been fighting beside Anna. It would really suck if he made it this far and gave in.

  “There’s a light up ahead. Looks like we’re in luck. It’s open.” She glanced his way. “You can’t go in looking like you do.”

  Finley pulled down the visor and looked at his face in the mirror. He was almost unrecognizable. It looked like a street gang had whaled on his face. Swollen, bruised, and unshaven. Anna was right, if anyone saw him, they’d call the cops. And the last thing they needed was for the sheriff to home in on their location.

  “Look, when we get there, I’ll pull up to the gas pump and go in and pay. While I’m in there, I’ll get us some pain pills, some coffee, and look around. Maybe they’ll have some sand
wiches or something.”

  “Harvey had a credit card in his phone case. I can just use that to get the gas. If the machine asks for his zip code, it’s on his car registration. Use the cash on food. Stock up in case we need to hunker down somewhere.”

  “Alright, while I do that, can you see if they have a pay phone and call Iniquus collect? Phones are usually outside, thankfully.”

  Finley had the binoculars up. “There’s a girl at the cash register. I’d say late teens, early twenties. I don’t see anyone else around. Yeah, I’ll make the call to Iniquus. Maybe Randy can get a game plan together. To be honest, I wouldn’t trust your life on anything I come up with right now.”

  The energy changed, Anna threw him a look – piercing, hard. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing new.” He reached down and laced his fingers with hers where her hand had gripped down on his thigh. He rubbed his thumb over back and forth to soothe the anxiety he’d provoked. “Just…I’ve needed a hospital since I fell out of the sky. We both have.” He looked out the window as Anna bumped into the parking lot and powered over to pump that was out of the girl’s view.

  She squeezed his hand then pulled herself away. “Here we go.”

  * * *

  The way Anna moved out the door was a study in nonchalance. In one arm she held a grocery-sized bag and in the other she balanced a drink carrier with two large coffee cups and two large soda cups.

  Something had gone wrong.

  He reached for the items and got in the car while Anna made her way to the driver’s seat.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” she was muttering under her breath as she turned the key.

  Finley waited to ask.

  She was searching along the horizons then pulled out of the lot.

  “I need you to find us a backroad, like now.” She pulled a map from inside her jacket. Finley assumed she’d stolen it since it wasn’t in the bag. Finley turned to look at the glass wall of the store front. The cash register girl stood at the door with her phone pressed to her ear, nodding her head.