Traitor Games

by Sidney Bristol

  “I can’t just leave.”

  “You’re going to,” Shemar said, the full weight of the power of the CIA behind his words. It wasn’t a suggestion or a request, this was an order.

  “But my sister…”

  “She’ll be watched after.” Donovan sighed. “Lillian, I would rather you walk out of this with Noah. Don’t make me order him to do what’s in your best interest.”

  He was serious.

  Her gaze drifted to Noah. He peeked at her in the mirror and she knew he’d go through with it. She couldn’t stop him.

  This wasn’t the plan. She wasn’t prepared for this. “My sister, the company…what will I tell them?”

  “For their sake, nothing,” Shemar replied. “You both have to decide now. If you wait longer, I can’t help you.”

  “I’m in,” Noah said without hesitation.

  Lillian was the one with everything to lose. Her family. Her work. A life. All she’d wanted to do was protect that.

  “What do you say, Lily?” Noah prompted. “Wanna go play spy?”

  “No.” She sucked down a deep breath and sat up. The hard truth was, Matthews girls didn’t get the easy way out. They never had, including now. Doing what was best meant doing what she didn’t want to do. “But it doesn’t matter what I want, does it? I have a go bag at the garage.”

  “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.” Noah twisted around and shifted the car into drive.

  Lillian stared down the street toward the entrance to the bustling building. She knew how this worked, because this was what happened to Carol. She’d vanished. And no one knew where to or why. Lillian’s best friend was just…gone.

  At least Jesse would realize her bag was missing and come to the correct conclusion. He couldn’t tell Camilla. There would be no answer for her family, only more questions. In time Lillian hoped they’d come to know the truth.

  They rode in silence for several blocks. Noah turned the car into a garage and killed the engine. Both he and Director Donovan got out, leaving her sitting there, too overwhelmed to move.

  The door opened and Noah crouched next to her.

  “Hey.” He reached over and covered her hand with his. His voice was softer, more compassionate. “I know this is a lot to take in, but we have to get going. Come on.”

  She let him pull her out of the car and shut the door. He didn’t drop her hand, but instead threaded their fingers together.

  She lengthened her stride to keep up with him. “What are we doing?”

  “We have to get out of here before someone realizes I borrowed that car.” He gestured at a beat-up, old crotch rocket. “Get on.”

  She stared at the bike, unable to move.

  “Hey? Lillian?” He placed his hands on her shoulders and waited for her to look up at him. “I wasn’t planning on fleeing the country today either, but it is what it is, sweetheart. Your watchdog’ll take care of your family. Here.” He handed her the helmet hooked on the handlebars and took her purse from her, freeing her hands.

  “But—”

  Noah held her face between his hands. His eyes were the most intense shade of blue she’d ever seen and right now they sliced deep into her.

  “You did your best to do it your way, and it didn’t pan out. Now, you can stay the course and possibly get everyone you care about killed, or you can come with me. I’ll be honest, they’re both pretty shitty options given what we’re up against, but if I had to pick, I’d go with the one that keeps me alive.”

  “Why do you care?”

  He stared down at her for a moment then licked his lips. “I work with a lot of bad people. It makes me appreciate the good ones a lot more.”

  There was something different about his stare. It felt as if he were looking deeply into her. She was going with him. That was already decided, she just had to accept it and go.

  “Let’s put this on you.” He took the helmet from her and set it on her head. “Ever ridden a bike before?”

  “Not enough to count.” She doubted taking a spin around a parking lot in college mattered. She’d always been a nice, safe-guy type of girl.

  “Well, just think of this as a ride. Get on.” He patted the seat.

  She swung her leg over the seat then looped her purse strap over her body. It contained everything she could take with her. Her favorite lipstick was in her desk drawer. The book she was reading was tucked between her phone and monitor. If she’d had a minute to grab things she’d have gotten her tablet, a change of shoes.

  “You’re going to hold on here and your feet go here.” Noah pointed out the proper spots before climbing on and twisting the key in the ignition.

  It was time to find out if her instincts about Noah were right or not. But first she had to survive the motorcycle ride.

  …

  Monday. CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia.

  “Shit,” Hector muttered and leaned toward the monitor showing the security feed of a parking garage. “Goddamn it.”

  That was Lillian Matthews getting on the back of Noah White’s motorcycle, all right.

  Hector had risked Noah’s paranoia by slapping a tracking device on the bike. At the time, Hector had merely been covering his ass. He hadn’t really thought Noah was anything other than a yes man, so long as he got to kill something, but with the state of things Hector couldn’t risk his neck on trust. Somehow Rand and Andy had gotten to Noah, made him soft.

  Noah knew the window for this op was closing. He was smart and prepared. If he and Lillian were being seen together in public, they were about to flee. In their shoes, Hector would hope for twelve hours lead time, which meant he had the upper hand. Neither were aware of the tracking device, or that Hector was following their movements using the closed-circuit TV system around the city.

  He had to handle this, before the others knew Noah had burned himself. He checked the available resources using the hidden network he’d been granted access to. There were no status changes, nothing of note, which meant he was doing this solo, without backup. But that was okay. He had a plan. It was creative and a bit outside the box, but it could do two things at once.

  He picked up his tablet and cell phone, then headed for the stairs. The tracking blip bounced along, showing the bike’s progress through the city.

  Once outside Hector used a dusty burner phone. There were three numbers on it, but only one he cared about. The line barely rang once.

  “What the fuck are you calling me for, you dirty spic?” Judging by the slightly slurred words, Hector’s man was probably halfway through a bottle.

  Hector pitched his voice lower. “Paying it forward.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know your friends over at that fancy place? The money one?”

  “How the hell do you know about them?”

  “Look, I just saw one of your blond-haired Aryan brothers in a suit. With a badge.”

  The line went quiet for a moment.

  Noah might have been the company’s man on the inside with the white supremacists, but Hector still had a few lines of communication Noah wasn’t involved with.

  “Who?” the man asked.

  “Don’t know his name. Funny guy. Thirties.”

  If the Aryan Brotherhood didn’t take the bait, Hector would try something else. With a psycho like Noah on the loose, it was likely going to take everything Hector could throw at him to make this go away.

  …

  Monday. Streets of D.C.

  Noah cursed under his breath, the sounds being whipped away on the wind. Donovan could have given him a little heads up. He had no plan in place, no bolt-hole prepared.

  Deep down, Noah had hoped Lillian would pull the magic rabbit out of the hat and make this all go away. When Donovan had reached out to talk, Noah had even thought the other man might have a solution. It was logical to assume that the director and president, both members of this secret justice fighting club, would have a better plan. Noah didn’t want to fo
rce Lillian to run for her life. That wasn’t a kind of existence many could survive for long.

  He eased the bike off the street and into a small lot between a bar and a pizza parlor.

  “Why are we stopping?” Lillian asked.

  “I need your phone. Unlock it, please.” He held out his hand.

  She dug in her purse for a moment before producing a sleek cellular device. She jabbed in a series of digits before handing it to him.

  “Watchdog’s name starts with a J, right?” He knew the man’s name, but he wasn’t about to pretend he knew it. That would be exposing how much he knew about Lillian’s life.

  “Jesse. His name is Jesse.” The note of annoyance drifted to the surface of her usually even tone.

  Noah jabbed the contact and pressed the speaker button.

  The line rang twice.

  “How’d it go?” Jesse asked.

  “Hey, buddy. Need you to light a match and burn it all down.” Noah hit the end call button and pulled out his knife.

  He pried the back off with his blade, popped the battery out and the SIM card. He tossed the phone into a nearby garbage can and kept the other two items for the time being.

  “What are we doing? What did that mean? Light a match and burn it all down?”

  “Hold on.”

  He gunned the engine and whipped the bike back out into traffic.

  A couple blocks away, he dropped the battery, then the SIM card.

  He’d long since accepted that there was something about Lillian Matthews that sucked him in. She was curvy, attractive, smart—all the things he appreciated in the opposite sex—but that wasn’t what had him intrigued. He didn’t know what it was and he no longer cared. They were a team and that meant putting everything else aside for now. Noah might not have been prepared to bounce from the country today, but he was going to do what had to be done to keep her alive.

  Noah backtracked and circled a couple blocks, collecting his thoughts, making a plan and searching for a tail.

  SICA was watching Lillian, which meant Noah didn’t have the standard twelve-hour head start. Six was more like it, and even then that was being generous.

  He pointed the bike toward the water and pushed faster, merging onto the highway. Their first stop would be his base of operations and a new set of wheels. After that they could grab her things and his bug-out bag and hit the road.

  A hand gripped his hip, and despite the trembling of the bike he knew the way she was shaking had nothing to do with their transportation. He couldn’t pull over and comfort her, give her a chance to catch her breath. She was going to have to be strong in a way he wished she didn’t.

  There was a lot worse headed their way.

  A black Ford F-150 changed lanes behind them.

  Noah’s stomach sank. He knew that truck. He’d had to stand in the garage and fawn over it like everyone else to make his boss happy. If his white supremacist dirtbag boss was after him, someone had blown Noah’s cover. It was easy to guess who.

  Hector.

  Their six-hour lead time was now zero. There would be no time to swing by and get her bags. It was a race for their lives and Noah’s cargo was precious.

  “Hold on,” he shouted.

  He swerved over the yellow line and into the narrow shoulder, then opened the bike up, letting it zip ahead at a speed of stupid, putting as much distance between themselves and the truck as he could.

  Horns blared behind them.

  Noah caught a glimpse of the truck cutting off a minivan and roaring up on another vehicle’s bumper.

  If there was one, there’d be more, soon.

  All that mattered was getting away. One way or another, Hector had found out about the meet with Donovan and burned Noah with his undercover op. The Aryan Brotherhood wasn’t a group he’d want to play with if he had his choice. These guys, with their money and resources, were worse than the run-of-the-mill white supremacist. They had plans, and Noah wasn’t a step ahead of them.

  A red Dodge Charger swerved across two lanes several car lengths behind them.

  They had to get off the highway and lose their tails.

  Noah barely glimpsed the blast of muzzle fire out of the corner of his eye.

  He let off the accelerator.

  A chunk of the concrete barricade running along the shoulder flew up and over their head, barely missing them.

  Shit.

  Adrenaline tinged with fear thrummed through his veins. The fear was new and unwelcome, but he couldn’t help it. This wasn’t just Noah’s life he was playing with here. He gathered up all that fear and sealed it off for later. Right now all that mattered was keeping them alive.

  Noah reached back and wrapped Lillian’s arm around his waist. He needed to maneuver fast, but if she counterbalanced him and threw them the wrong way, they’d become a smear on the road.

  He cut into the leftmost lane. A luxury SUV slammed on its brakes and lay on its horn.

  The Charger was the main threat. It was more maneuverable in traffic. He was pretty sure he’d glimpsed two people in it, one to drive, one to fire.

  Noah twisted, looking behind them, but couldn’t spot the other vehicles. They had to risk it.

  He swerved across two lanes.

  The Charger changed with them and zoomed up alongside the bike. Noah saw the glint of sunlight off the metal and twisted the handlebars, sending them careening between traffic. Bullets tore through the side of an eighteen-wheeler’s trailer, leaving cannon ball–sized holes.

  Fuck.

  Noah made it into the right-hand lane, but the F-150 was now directly behind them. He took the next exit. Where it put them didn’t matter. They needed off the kill lanes of the highway.

  “Hold on tight,” he yelled.

  The truck and Charger followed Noah down the ramp. At the last second, where the retaining wall gave way to asphalt painted with white stripes, Noah squeezed the brakes and whipped the bike around, going the wrong way down the access road. In the rearview mirror he could see both of the vehicles stopped in the dead space, the drivers and passenger watching them.

  Noah cut through traffic to the tune of more horns.

  He pulled off into a delivery area at the back of a building and killed the engine.

  “Get off. Now.” He slid off the bike, taking Lillian with him.

  “Okay.” Her voice was strained, but she quickly did as she was told, clutching her purse to her chest, eyes wide.

  Lillian was an analyst by training. She worked in an office. Her experience with spy trade was from the safety of her home. This was her first time in the field. There was a world of difference between knowing what would happen and responding to it. She was holding it together beautifully, but he had to help her.

  “We have to move.” He took off his helmet and tossed it on the ground.

  Lillian followed his lead, fumbling a bit with the unfamiliar buckle. “What just happened? Was that them?”

  “Walk.” He took her hand and together they strode down the street. “Give me your purse and take your coat off.”

  She handed the tan bag over. They both knew what he was going to do.

  “Those are guys I work with while undercover. They’re looking for us. You, I bet. That coat’s memorable. You are memorable.” He kept a tight hold on her hand, hauling her down the street.

  Lillian didn’t wait for a garbage can. She dropped the expensive coat onto the sidewalk and held tight to his hand.

  Good girl.

  A bus eased to a stop at the curb, its doors sliding open.

  “Get on.” He urged her up the stairs while watching the street.

  Noah bent and stared out the windows while he dug out enough coins to pay the fare. He wouldn’t use his SmarTrip card. Too easy to track.

  The black truck turned down the street.

  “Go.” Noah urged Lillian halfway down the aisle so they stood near the middle set of doors in a cluster of people.

  He put his back to the window an
d put himself between the glass and Lillian. The bus eased away from the curb. He grabbed the overhead rail with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her close to him. The bus merged with traffic, right behind the truck.

  “What’s going on? What just happened?” Lillian looked up at him. The panic was dying and now her brain was flipping on. She wanted information because that’s what she was good at.

  The movement of the bus made her sway into him, bringing their bodies together in a way he didn’t need to think about.

  “Those guys chasing us are the people the company has me watching.” He inclined his head. It wasn’t like he could come out and say CIA in a public place like this. “My guess is that the same person who gave me the package is onto us and put those guys on our scent.”

  “What are we going to do?” She fisted his shirt in one hand. Did she even realize she was holding onto him?

  “Hope that whatever means they’re using to track us are gone.”

  “Noah…” She wobbled as the bus shifted gears.

  He tightened his hold on her and bent his head to whisper in her ear. “You’re scared. That’s natural. I need you to pull yourself together for a little while longer. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

  He peered at the map on the wall.

  They could get close to his safe house if they transferred buses in a few stops. It was a slow mode of transportation, but without something lined up it was their best bet out of the choke zone. Hector would pull in more people to look for them, increasing the chances someone would find out where they were or where they were going.

  “Who else is after us?” Lillian asked.

  “Don’t know. If our friend had to use these guys that could be good for us.”

  “How is this good?”

  “It means he doesn’t have other resources at his disposal.” Noah met her gaze and willed her to understand. “I don’t think they set this up to trap me, which means we’ve caught them unprepared. That’s good for us.”

  Noah kept watch out the sides of the bus, but didn’t catch a glimpse of either the black truck or red Charger again.

  The bus wove its way through the streets and bit by bit Noah relaxed. They took seats once they were vacant, allowing him some much needed distance from Lillian and space to think.