The Enforcer

by Marliss Melton

  “Let it happen, beautiful,” Burke whispered against her lips. Then he plundered her mouth with a kiss that mimicked the actions of his clever fingers, and…

  Oh, God. She had never been so conscious of her femininity, especially when he thrust a finger into her aching center, covering her mouth to absorb the cry that issued from her throat.

  Yes!

  He added a second digit and thrust again, using his thumb now to tease the pulsing knot that ruled her pleasure.

  “Burke!”

  He spoke against her lips. “Call me Toby.”

  But she was unable to speak again. She came in a rush of pleasure so powerful and pure it brought tears to her eyes as she rode his thrusting fingers until the episode ended, right where it had begun.

  Tobias’s burning regard bespoke of a hunger that kept her heart beating irregularly. But, instead of pressing his advantage, he withdrew his hand reluctantly. A bittersweet smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

  “Don’t look so horrified,” he said, straightening her nightshirt almost tenderly and retying the sash of her robe as she weaved on her feet, too overcome to speak. “Think of it this way. Now I have to go to church to repent for my sins.” He gave her his patented wink, dropped a lingering kiss on her slightly parted lips and let himself out of her room.

  A second later, Dylan heard him climb the stairs to the attic. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to move. She throbbed in places she hadn’t given a thought to in over a year. Her knees jittered. Despite what she knew she ought to do—banish that aberration from her mind forever—she relived every intimate detail of it, savoring every forbidden pleasure.

  Alive!

  But then chagrin burned her face as she considered what an easy conquest she must have seemed. I ought to be ashamed of myself.

  Only, it wasn’t shame that made her insides quiver. It was the unholy thought of Tobias possessing her with his entire body. With a moan, she covered her hot face with her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. Thank God she was headed to church tomorrow, so she could atone for her sins.

  Toby lay back on his bedroll staring at the patches of moonlight as they floated across the attic’s eaves. He ought to be feeling smug at his accomplishment. He’d made Dylan Connelly orgasm in less than five minutes. And yet, despite his own throbbing hard-on, he felt strangely upset with himself.

  What for? It wasn’t as if he’d forced himself on her. Having read her subtle willingness, he’d taken decisive action, following his standard operating procedure: arouse the target and then back off. The technique practically guaranteed that the woman made the next move. It had to be that way. Perceiving herself to be in control, she was likelier to share her secrets in a timely fashion, and he didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary.

  Still… He felt mildly ashamed.

  Initiating the information game had never bothered him before. Nor had it concerned him whether the women he’d seduced—mainly discontented housewives and girlfriends of small arms traffickers—found out that he’d used them to get to the truth because they’d all been tramps. Not one of them held a light to Dylan Connelly.

  Oh, shut the fuck up, he told the poetic voice inside him.

  The fact of the matter remained that he was here to do a job. Whatever it took to discover the truth, he would do it. He just couldn’t help thinking what a hypocrite he’d be sitting in church with her tomorrow.

  Chapter Seven

  Seated near the front of St. Peter’s Church with the pews full behind him, Toby wondered if the stained-glass eyes of saints and martyrs were making his nape prickle, or if everyone seated behind them was remarking his presence and speculating.

  A casual glance back informed him that many of Dylan’s militia members attended church here. Men from his own squad acknowledged eye contact with a nod, including Nathan the waiter, whose shell-shocked expression suggested not only that his wife had finally given birth but also that he’d witness the entire event.

  The Sheriff of Harpers Ferry, seated in the rear pew, sent him a hard look. Toby gulped and looked away. Now that man made him nervous.

  At Dylan’s nudge, he devoted his attention on the priest moving into the pulpit, his voice echoing under the chancel with its ribbed vaults as he intoned, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

  At those words, Dylan relaxed into the pew, her knee brushing Toby’s thigh and jolting his senses. Lt. Ashby sat on her left side, all four NCOs on her right, with June Lee all the way at the end. Toby counted himself lucky that he got to sit next to Dylan, even though her touch had him replaying her sweet surrender in his arms last night. He ignored the priest’s sermon until he heard Syria being mentioned.

  “Reading the headlines of The Washington Post this past year, my heart has bled for the Syrian people,” the priest admitted.

  Toby focused on him abruptly, surprised to being hearing a politically-based sermon.

  “I have watched their struggles to overthrow the current regime, to no avail,” the priest admitted. “I have wept as Bashar Assad has countered their efforts with the brutality of Satan himself, shelling cities into rubble, inflicting chemical warfare on the very people he ought to be protecting. Yet regardless of my empathy for the plight of Syria, this morning’s headlines disturb me even more: ‘Five Thousand Marines to Lend Support to NATO.’ I ask myself, is this the beginning of another long war?”

  Father Nesbit laid claim to a pleasantly bland face. There was nothing remarkable about his appearance or his stature, but his conviction held his audience captive.

  “When we hear of atrocities perpetrated on the innocent, our hearts cry out for justice. How can we not lend a hand to a people striving for democracy? How dare we turn a blind eye to the starvation and deprivation of women and children? Look to history and to the Bible and you will find the answer.”

  He smoothed the pages of the thick book in front of him. “One of our scripture readings this morning comes from the Book of Isaiah. ‘God shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.’”

  He looked up. “Did you hear that? God shall judge. God shall mediate. Not the United States of America. We have only to look to Iraq and Afghanistan to see what happens when we take that mission upon ourselves. What happens is war, and war is always wrong.”

  Dylan’s rapt expression reminded Toby of the anti-war articles she had written and published online. She and the priest obviously saw eye-to-eye on this subject.

  “But look at the numbers, you argue. Over sixty thousand dead; two hundred and fifty thousand are homeless and in need of food. Surely the Church understands the need for war in the face of such desperation. The answer is, no! Not in the case of Syria. Not if you abide by the Just War Doctrine, which the church has upheld since its founding and uses to determine whether war is the only possible solution to resolving conflict.”

  He began outlining the four conditions of the Just War Doctrine, while illustrating that, in the case of Syria, not a single condition had yet been met.

  Toby gritted his teeth. Sending in Marines to lead the NATO-initiated force was the only right thing to do, in his opinion. It was clearly a situation of act now or pay later.

  A sheen of sweat shone on Nesbit’s high forehead. “And let us not forget what war has done to our own fighting men and women—” he added, his blue eyes straying toward Dylan, “—who’ve returned home in coffins, without limbs, and with broken hearts and broken minds.”

  Toby stiffened. What the hell? Had the priest just implied that she was crazy? Of course, he’d had the same thought himself but…

  “Rather than send soldiers abroad, we would be better off looking to our own brokenness.” Nesbit glanced back down at the Bible. “As the apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, ‘Then do what is good
, and you will receive Christ’s approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.’ Amen.”

  “Amen,” muttered a subdued congregation.

  In the prayers and the sacrament that followed, Toby squirmed, willing the service to be over. He wondered if Dylan inherited her anti-war sentiment from Father Nesbit, or vice versa? Did she dread the prospect of war enough to kill those who acted in support of it?

  Time would tell. Right now, he just wanted to be with people like himself and enjoy his only day off. With relief, he sang the closing hymn, earning a startled look from Dylan, who appeared to be impressed by his singing voice. No sooner was the benediction uttered than he broke for the door, pushing past the others to make his escape.

  Dylan quickly caught up to him. “Come meet Father Nesbit.” Putting a light hand on his arm, she steered him toward the line of parishioners waiting to shake the priest’s hand.

  With envy, Toby watched the other NCOs slip around the priest and make their escape. “I need to catch my train,” he reminded her.

  “It’ll take five minutes.”

  At last, it was their turn. “Dylan!” The priest greeted her with a broad smile and both hands outstretched. His blue eyes jumped to Toby. “And who’s this?” he asked, with a welcoming smile.

  Dylan made the introductions. “This is Tobias Burke, my newest NCO. Father Nesbit was a friend of my parents,” she told Toby. “He baptized and confirmed me.”

  “I’ve heard good things about you,” Nesbit said, proving that the gossip mill was alive and well in Harpers Ferry. The priest lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I hope my sermon didn’t offend a former Army Ranger. In no way did I mean to denigrate the efforts of our brave fighting men and women.”

  “No problem.” The feeling that he was being watched tickled his nape again. He had to get the hell out of here. “Sorry to rush off, but I have a train to catch.”

  Dylan excused his rudeness with, “My men look forward to their day off.” Together, they climbed shale steps to the tiny lot uphill where they’d left her SUV. There, all the NCOs except for Chet Lee, who took off with his wife in his own car, hovered around the Suburban, anxious to leave.

  As Dylan fished her car keys from her purse, Toby glimpsed the butt of her pistol still tucked inside and his pulse ticked upward. Christ, did she take it everywhere she went, even into church?

  “It’s open.”

  Raising the back hatch, Toby strapped on Milly’s service vest, grabbed up his jacket and his duffle bag now full of dirty laundry, and called the dog out. Turning to Dylan, he found her watching him. “Well, see you tonight,” he promised.

  Her quartz-colored eyes reflected doubt. “I’ll pick you up,” she offered unexpectedly. “What time does the train get back?”

  “Five fifteen,” he said, forgetting to use military time.

  “I’ll meet you at the station, then,” she promised, looking tense.

  “Okay. Thanks.” With a wave at the men who’d already climbed into the Suburban, he headed toward the shale steps that would take him to the street below. He could feel Dylan’s eyes on his back.

  He hadn’t managed to prove her guilt yet, but in one week’s time, he had her eating out of the palm of his hand, exactly as the Taskforce had needed him to do.

  Where, then, was the satisfaction he normally felt at such an accomplishment?

  Tobias’s disappearing head filled Dylan with a panicky sense of loss.

  In just one week’s time, he had brought her back to the world of the living. Before that, she’d just been going through the motions. She had used the militia’s creed to infuse her life with purpose, the noise of the firing range to subdue her PTSD. But it wasn’t until Tobias Burke first smiled at her that she’d started to anticipate each waking day.

  He wasn’t like the other NCOs, all of whom ascribed to her political and religious views—or pretended to. She wasn’t even sure why he’d joined her militia. Maybe he just wanted to relive his glory days as an Army Ranger. He certainly didn’t seem to care that the liberties their ancestors had fought so hard to secure were under threat. And yet . . . he drew her like a moth to flame.

  “Come have some coffee, Dylan,” called a voice from the front of the church.

  Forcing a smile, Dylan shook her head and waved. “I’m sorry. I have to go now.” She longed to mope in solitude.

  Just then, a train clattered over the trestles that spanned the merging rivers. That would be Tobias’s Amtrak nearing the station, and he would arrive just in time to board it. But would he come back? That was the question.

  With a heavy heart, she slid behind the wheel of her SUV feeling like the sun was already sinking on her new dawn.

  ****

  The usual bustle and confusion in Washington D.C.’s Union Station was distinctly absent on a Sunday morning. Toby and Milly hopped down from the train into a hush interspersed with the sounds of hissing hydraulics and leisurely footsteps.

  Following a handful of backpackers who’d ventured off the Appalachian Trail in Harpers Ferry, Toby guided Milly to the subterranean levels of Union Station where they boarded an Orange Line Metro train bound for West Falls Church. From there, they took a cab to the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean. All the while the hair on the back of Toby’s neck prickled, making him suspect a tail.

  But whenever he searched for the source, he saw no one. Evidently, Dylan’s paranoia had rubbed off on him.

  The National Counterterrorism Center buzzed with activity seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Analysts from thirteen different agencies worked in the Operations Center without ceasing. As Toby crossed from one side of the room to the other, scenes of an ongoing firefight in Syria unfolded on the giant screen overhead. Several analysts called greetings to his dog. Everyone knew Milly by name; Toby they usually ignored, except to smirk at whatever message he was wearing on his T-shirt. Today he’d dressed for church in a pale blue button-down, so no message.

  A set of stairs conveyed him to offices on the second level, including the boardroom where the Taskforce convened on a weekly basis. Comprised of a handful of agents pulled in from various agencies—the FBI, ATF, DEA, and NSA to name a few—the central mission of the Taskforce was to lend support to Homeland Security in general, by placing informants in suspected terrorist cells in and around the D.C. area. Dylan’s militia was one such cell.

  Toby pushed his way inside only to find that the team lead and his two colleagues had already beat him to the meeting. They all glanced up from a long table to remark his entrance.

  Jackson Maddox, a light-skinned African-American FBI special agent, sent him a smile. The black-haired stranger studied him intently, and Ike, the team lead, with closely-cropped, prematurely silver hair, glanced pointedly at the wall clock. “You’re late,” he grated.

  Toby wished he was wearing his T-shirt that read CHILL, except Ike Calhoun, a former Navy SEAL, didn’t know the meaning of the word. Rumor had it he only relaxed when he escaped to his cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  Ike made terse introductions between Toby and the stranger. “Burke, this is Special Agent Hamilton, on loan to us from DEA.”

  Hamilton stood up, proving to be well over six feet tall. His hand swallowed Toby’s as they exchanged a handshake. Black hair, dark eyes, and strong cheekbones testified to American Indian heritage. “Call me TJ,” he offered.

  “Tobias Burke. This is Milly,” Toby added, when the man’s dark eyes shifted to his dog.

  “Enough small talk,” Ike interrupted.

  Toby took his seat. “How’s Lena?” he asked Jackson, ignoring the team lead’s determination to get right down to work.

  Jackson’s gray-green eyes, startling pale against his dusky skin, glinted with satisfaction. “Excellent.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Jackson had met Lena the previous year while posing as an ex-convict in a prisoner reintegration program. The journalist
who’d threatened to expose his investigation had ended up becoming his wife.

  Not that something like that could ever happen to me, Toby mused. Dylan wasn’t exactly wife material.

  “And your wife and baby, sir? How are they?” he asked, continuing to frustrate Ike, who’d become a father to a bouncing baby girl last February

  “Good.” For a moment, it seemed that was all he was going to say when he added gruffly, “Ariel can stand up already.”

  Fatherly pride colored his voice. “No kidding,” Toby exclaimed. “She’ll be dating before you know it,” he ribbed, earning a cold stare. He knew he was crazy to shake the bars of Ike Calhoun’s cage but, just once, he’d like to see the man lose his cool.

  “What’s your gut feeling on the militia leader?” Ike clipped, putting an abrupt end to the small talk.

  Toby touched his jaw as he considered where to start. “Well, she’s a little off her rocker,” he conceded. “And she’s definitely a strict constructionist when it comes to interpreting the Constitution.” He brought them up-to-date on her plans for the peaceful protest at the fusion center in Woodlawn. “She views oversight on the part of the federal government as a breach of First Amendment rights.”

  “What’s her position on the impending war with Syria?” Ike inquired.

  “She hasn’t brought it up, but her priest has. You should’ve heard him in church this morning.”

  Jackson coughed to cover up a laugh. “You went to church?”

  “Just this morning,” Toby affirmed. “And it didn’t collapse, burn down, or sink into the river. But seriously,” he looked back at Ike. “She’s known the priest all her life. If she’s responsible for the bombing, he could well be the motivating force behind it.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Arthur Nesbit.” Pulling the church bulletin from his rear pocket, he handed it to Ike, who flipped through it.

  “Tell me about the militia members who live with her,” Ike requested, laying down the bulletin and transferring his fingers to his laptop. “Who are they and what are they like?”