by Fiona Quinn
Striker and I both worked for Iniquus Security. We do the things that the alphabets would like to do on their own, but red tape and politics shackled them.
At Iniquus, we didn’t have to deal with those kinds of constraints. Our sole purpose was to get the bad guys into the hands of prosecutors and protect the innocent.
Striker commanded Strike Force, one of the five specialized Iniquus operations groups. I was attached to Strike Force, though I wasn’t under Striker’s command.
A good thing.
I didn’t think I’d want to be in an intimate relationship with someone who had power over me.
I’ve been working at Iniquus ever since Strike Force stepped into my life to protect me from a serial killer four years ago.
Wow…four years? Yeah, though I was nineteen when that all went down, it still seemed like yesterday—a string of devastating events over a few short months—Mom’s death. My mentor, Spyder McGraw, went off-grid, leaving me rudderless. My apartment building burned to the ground. I met my (soon to be ex-) husband Angel, and a whirlwind romance led Angel and me to the courthouse for quick wedding vows. Immediately after Angel and I said, “I do,” Angel stepped onto the bus taking him to the airport and off to Afghanistan where his Ranger unit was deploying. And that was when a serial killer left his first letter under my door.
Striker strode into my hospital room, scooped me up, and stole away with me to an Iniquus safe house after I survived the killer’s attack. There, Strike Force’s job was to protect me and keep me alive, so I could testify.
I figured a few crimes puzzled out while I was sequestered in the safe house, and Iniquus Command recognized the skills taught to me by one of their own, Spyder McGraw. And that’s how I came to be part of the Iniquus family.
Spyder…
Wow, I haven’t seen Spyder since Christmas.
Hadn’t heard a word.
That he called, commanded, and hung up…
Typical Spyder.
It was a puzzle. To figure it out, I needed more pieces.
I was champing at the bit to hear what the FBI wanted to say to me.
I moved to my closet and rifled through the hangers.
CIA and potentially FBI today, what did I want to wear?
I pulled out a pair of gray dress pants and a pale-blue, short-sleeved summer sweater. With my phone, panties, and bra gathered, I took everything into the bathroom to get ready.
And wait for the phone call.
Yup, Spyder had poked his Anansi-trickster head out from his hidey-hole.
A lifelong family friend of my parents, after Dad’s death, Spyder took up the role of a second father. I loved Spyder for everything he has taught me through the years. My ethos. My code. My stability.
If Spyder said jump into the lava lake, I’d jump knowing that he would have weighed everything and trusted that I could successfully swim to the other side.
Somewhere, there was lava.
And Spyder had said jump.
Chapter Three
Emerging from the bathroom, I lifted my nose to the scent of coffee wafting up the stairs.
Bless you, Striker.
I’d admit it, last night’s row-dream was ill-timed. I didn’t feel game-ready. The shower hadn’t done the trick. But the coffee…
I hustled down the stairs to the kitchen, where Striker leaned his hips into the counter. He was wearing his butter-soft, over-washed jeans that were missing their top button—and nothing else. He crossed his ankles comfortably as he cradled a mug.
I looked up at the kitchen clock and then back at the staircase.
If only the call would come in from the FBI, I’d know if there was time to jog up the stairs and work off some stress with a little sheet-aerobics.
“Chica,” Striker said as I turned back to cast a longing look down the length of his body. “If you keep licking your lips while you eye me like candy, I’m turning your phone to airplane mode and throwing you over my shoulder to take you back to bed.”
“Promise?”
He stalled with a tip of his head, then reached for the mug he’d already doctored for me with milk and Splenda.
“Lexi, you need to pace yourself. This isn’t going to be the easiest of weeks.”
I accepted the mug, sliding onto one of the kitchen chairs, repositioning to face Striker.
“It’s your mom’s birthday. Were you dreaming about her last night?”
I lifted my chin, asking with my body language why he guessed that.
“Row, row, row your boat?”
“Ah.” I took a sip from the mug. “I’m sorry if I kept you awake. Yeah, I’ve had a flood of memories about my parents over these last few days. It’s the most curious thing…”
“Tell me.”
I waggled my hand toward my back. “It’s like they’re both right there, looking over my shoulder.”
Striker’s brows laced. He was probably afraid of what new woo-woo channel was playing on my psychic network. While Striker usually dealt with my psychic senses just fine, he still didn’t love that I could see, and sense, and do things in the ether where he had little dexterity beyond the senses typically developed by SEALs in the field.
During his military career, Striker built those capabilities—the sense of eyes on him. Reading a room. A hovering foot that just knew there was a tripwire hidden. But that was the extent of it.
And for me, that was baby talk.
“Your parents are just checking in?” His voice sounded one part hopeful, two parts braced. “I don’t remember you mentioning ghosts as part of your experiences.”
I waggled my hand again, like an antenna trying to home in on a signal. “Ghosts? That doesn’t sound right. It’s not the term I’d use. Presence? Yeah, I don’t know that I’ve experienced my parents hanging out with me in quite this way since either of them died.” I scratched at my chin.
“No words? Just a sensation?”
“Exactly. Like they’re worried. Like…” I looked up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I don’t know—just kind of hanging out over my right shoulder.
Striker rubbed the back of his neck. “All right, Chica. But if you pick up a knowing, I get to hear about it straight away.”
I gave him a mock salute and picked up my coffee, taking a deep, satisfying inhale before I put the mug to my lips.
A knowing was the word I used when a psychic phrase came to me. It used to be that they happened all the time as a child. Simple silly things like waking up to the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty, and I would know that Dad would be making eggs for breakfast.
Since Mom died, the childish knowings had stopped. Just like before, information was presented as children’s rhymes, baby songs, or even kid stories. But they were never innocent.
Now, they usually presaged life or death horror.
It was understandable why Striker was worried that last night’s “Row, row, row your boat” had worked its way into my dreams.
I stilled. Shit. Was it a knowing?
With that thought, my phone buzzed on the table. The vibrations bobbled it against the hard surface, sending it spinning.
I snatched it up.
“Hello?”
“Lynx? It’s Finley.” Steve Finley used my Iniquus call sign. He was an FBI special agent whom I had crossed paths with on many an assignment. His lane was domestic terrorism. That he was the one calling was information.
“Good morning.”
“I got a text saying this wasn’t too early to call.” Finley’s voice sounded tired. “Five is a shitty time to reach out, but this was my window. I hope you understand.”
“No worries. I was waiting for you while I got a cup of coffee in me.”
“I’ve been chugging coffee for the last twenty-four hours. If I got shot, I’d bleed caffeine.”
“No evil eye, no evil eye, no evil eye.” I chanted with a grin.
“Ha! That’s right. No need to curse myself into not making it through today.”
My smile
fell off. “Are you in danger?”
“Me? No. I’m at the office and plan to stay here at least through this evening. So you got the warning call to expect me?”
“FBI in general. I’m glad it’s you in the specific. I like working with people with whom I’ve already built a rapport. It saves time.”
“And our time is very compressed. Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
“Just coffee.”
“We’d like for you to come to FBI Headquarters to be read into the program and talk to our specialist this afternoon. Does that work for you?”
“I’m headed to Langley at eleven. Let me give them a two-hour window and an hour to get from Point A to Point B. Would fourteen hundred hours work?”
“I believe so. I’d like you to do me a favor, though. I’m going to text you the address of a diner. If it works in today’s schedule, we’d like for you to go there for breakfast and put your eyes on a young server named Modesty Turlington.”
“Modesty? As in shy?”
“Yes, well, I don’t know about synonyms, but her parents named her Modesty on her birth certificate.”
I curled my fingers and looked at the hang nail I’d been worrying. I lifted it to my mouth and nibbled it off, leaving a raw red spot. “I knew a couple once that called their son ‘Brave.’”
“And was he?” Finley asked.
“Hard to tell. I never saw him in a situation where he needed to be particularly courageous. He’s four years old, though. I guess time will tell.”
“A name with big shoes to fill.” I could hear the smile in Finley’s voice. “Out of curiosity, did he have any siblings?”
“His sister Pam.”
“Those names seem on either end of a naming spectrum.”
“Their last name was Lamb. So it’s Pam Lamb and Brave Lamb. I’m sure they had their reasons.”
“Surely…”
There was a long pause that I filled by taking a sip of coffee.
“About Modesty,” Finley continued. “I’d like you to get a feel for her before you get any other information about the situation. So we’re hoping you can go by her work and get eyes on.”
“Okay, if I do that, she’s going to see my face, so I should dress for my role.”
“Here’s the deal, Modesty was raised in ongoing difficulties, and like many children who were in survival mode—”
“She developed intuitive skills,” I filled in.
“Exactly. She has an advanced BS meter. We need someone in this role who is authentic. Someone with a background story that sounds like it parallels hers. And we need someone her age.”
“How old?”
“She’s eighteen. Dressed properly, you could pass as a teenager.”
Striker had crossed his arms over his chest as he listened to my end of the conversation. I could tell from his eyes that he was absorbing, processing, and assessing the situation the FBI was thrusting me into.
“What about my background parallels hers?” I spun my mug around as I concentrated on not only Finley’s word choices but his tone. There was determination laced into his words.
“Seeming parallels. The jigsaw pieces are the same, but the final pictures are different. Some aspects that you share—raised by a community of people. The elders in that community taught you instead of your going to school. You were taught specific skills that are esoteric—meditation practices amongst them. You have a wide perspective but can’t really relate to the norms of what school kids experienced.”
“I can rebuild an engine but have no idea about which dinosaurs died in the Mesolithic, or even if there were dinosaurs in the Mesolithic?”
“Yeah, like that. Your knowledge and experience are quite different than most. Same with Modesty, but to be sure, she doesn’t have your skills. She was taught things more in line with agriculture and making hammocks.”
“She’s escaped a commune?”
Striker moved around uncomfortably.
“More later,” Finley said.
“Okay.” I pulled a noisy breath in through my nostrils. “So if I escaped a commune, I’d have little… My job this morning is to get my eyes on this target and get a read. I can do that.”
“Perfect. Thank you.” There was a long pause. “Spyder told you to expect my call. You know two things about me, I’m domestic terror, but I work for the Joint Task Force, which has an international scope. In this assignment, you’ll be trying to lace these ideas together.”
“Yup.” I glanced over at Striker; our gazes caught. Held.
“While this is a big deal to the FBI—millions of dollars in fraud—this case has bigger ramifications. We’ve been working with Spyder since he brought us in on his findings. The implications stretch to a case that the two of you have been working on. So he asked us to bring you on board. We’re happy to have you.”
Wow. That right there was a HUGE piece of information.
“Happy to be had.” The air had caught in my chest.
Spyder and I had been working to bring down the group Spyder had named “Hydra,” a criminal network that had been run by a mad man, now deceased. He had created a monster by using established entities to engage in a crime network, enriching everyone in their group through a parade of illegal activity. Omega, Iniquus’s rival, did the security aspects. Sylanos had been a software pirate back when such a thing was prevalent. He’d acted as the money bags. And here in the United States, the group called “The Assembly,” which was made up of our highest-ranking politicians, judges, police, and other power jobs, closed the circles to protect the bad guys should they be caught.
It was sort of like back in the Civil War, the Mason’s gave their members a Free Mason card to carry with them. Should the soldier ever be captured, they were to present the card to the enemy. The enemy would then hand the captured soldier over to a Mason from their side of the conflict. It was one of the original “get out of jail free” cards. No matter your side, your Masonic brethren would keep you safe.
Same with the Assembly.
Assemblymen, and they were all men, felt that their membership made them god-like. They weren’t subject to the laws of men. Rape. Theft. Murder even… Nah, none of that mattered. Not when the police chief, the DA, and the judge all wore their little Assembly pins. Signals, just like the Masonic papers had been, that they were subject to different rules.
They were allowed to act with impunity.
Spyder had worked against them for over a decade. We dropped an atomic bomb of data exposing much of their criminal activity about a year and a half ago. At that time, the Assembly was so enmeshed in American politics and the three branches of government, it was quite a societal upheaval.
I thought we’d mostly succeeded. But according to mythology, you cut off the head of the Hydra, and it keeps growing back.
Holy moly, I’m back to fighting the Hydra.
Striker caught my gaze.
I realized my brows were up to my hairline, and my eyes were held wide and unblinking.
“See you at two o’clock then, main entrance. I’ll wait for you and bring you through security,” Finley said. “Call me if the time needs to change.”
“Will do. Bye.” I rolled my lips in.
“That doesn’t look good.” Ridges crisscrossed Striker’s forehead.
Pressing my thumbs into my temple to stop the sudden throbbing, I took in a deep breath. “It’s fine. That was Finley. He wants me to go get breakfast at a diner.” I stopped as I heard a ping and checked my text messages. It was an address. “They need someone who is a good parallel for a subject of interest. Same general age. An unusual background—”
“That someone might read as cultish? You said cult, right?”
“My words, not Finley’s. If you think about it, yes, my childhood could be described in such a way that it could seem very cult-like. I can choose my words carefully.”
“And they’ll give you support? Cults aren’t always safe playgrounds. Think Jim Jones.”
“Spyder’s involved with a cult runaway?” Striker asked.
“That can only mean one thing.” I pressed a kiss onto Striker’s cheek.
“He’s taking another run at the Hydra.” Striker reached for my arm and held me still. “Christen’s getting into town Monday morning.”
“I can’t wait.” I smiled. Christen was flying in from a forward operating base in the Middle East, where she was a pilot with the Night Stalkers. She’d saved up her leave time so she could marry my teammate—one of my best friends, Gator Aid Rochambeau—then head off on an extended honeymoon.
Striker and I got to stand with them as part of the wedding party—an honor.
“I’m bringing it up because you’ll have the wedding on your mind,” Striker was saying. “And we’re heading to the CIA.”
I tipped my head back so he could clearly see my eyes. “I won’t cause a scene.”
“No?” He released my hand.
“What do you think I’m going to do? I could maybe walk across their sacred CIA seal, stand in front of the hero’s wall, and yell out to all that will hear, ‘I was told I was a widow. I grieved my dead husband. I picked myself up, moving on with my life, only to discover that it was a CIA ploy. Angel was alive all that time. I was promised a private divorce, sealed by the courts, in exchange for my silence about their black ops mission.’” My voice was ramping up. “‘You reneged, CIA. You tortured me with my grief, CIA. And then, didn’t even follow through with this teeny tiny ask on my part.’ You think I’ll do that, Striker?”
“Might.” He set his mug on the counter. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” He crossed his arms over his chest. Protector-mode. “But you’d probably be arrested for voicing classified information.” He tipped his head and sent me a warm smile. “Christen and Gator really want you to wear a dress to their wedding and not prison orange.”
