Dangerously Entwined

by Sidney Bristol

  They needed a lead.

  “So I guess it’s not useful to know that a cell phone registered to Liman Fahed pinged a Chicago cell tower a few hours ago?” Gavin asked.

  “What the hell?” Grant stared at the kid. “Why didn’t you say that?”

  “Look,” Marco snapped, pointing at the map.

  Grant glanced back in time to see a little red dot flash on the screen, then off.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “A tracker,” Gavin said. “Move.”

  The kid shoved people out of his way as he made straight for one of the terminals. His fingers flew over the keys.

  “She’s there?” Grant pointed at the spot where the dot had been.

  “That’s where the system triangulated her location, but she was only there long enough for it to happen once.” Gavin kept at the keyboard.

  “Where is that?” Grant turned toward the door. “You know what? Just send it to my phone. I’m going to go take a look.”

  “Like hell you are.” Marco moved into Grant’s path and stopped.

  “If anyone’s going, it’s me,” Ghost said.

  “That’s my teammate out there.” Grant gestured at the screen. “I’m going.”

  Marco held up his hands. “No one is going. We don’t know what’s there.”

  “Which is why I am checking it out.” Ghost came to stand next to Grant. “I’m not asking permission. I’ll take him with me, but it’s not my fault if he gets himself killed.”

  “Fucking hell.” Marco stared at the ceiling.

  “Go,” Luke said, finally chiming in. “We need to know what’s there, and we need to know where Melody was. Maybe that will help us find where she is now. Just look around, don’t do anything, understand?”

  “Car?” Grant asked. He didn’t have wheels.

  Luke dug in his pocket. “Here. Bring it back in one piece.”

  “Come on,” Ghost said.

  Grant took the keys then followed Ghost.

  “Your guys coming with us?” Grant asked.

  Ghost spoke lower. “My guys aren’t going if they don’t have to.”

  “Then why bring them?”

  “It’s complicated and they don’t want to be here. Bad things happen when we’re all in the same spot.”

  Grant wanted to know, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. Sometimes ignorance was better.

  The sun was creeping over the horizon, burning off the mist still clinging to the earth. He held the keys up and clicked the unlock button.

  A smaller SUV’s lights flashed up near the curb.

  Moments later they were loaded up and on the road headed toward the city.

  “Kind of funny how that signal came from a place not all that far from here,” Ghost said.

  Grant glanced at him. “They were watching us. They knew who we were when we were in the country. It’s not like our offices are top secret. So they came here and set up a place where they could watch and search for Ethan.”

  And somehow Grant’s team had played right into their hands.

  “How does this end for Ethan?” He glanced at Ghost. “You think your department might take him in?”

  “My department?” Ghost snorted. “Technically speaking I’m AWOL.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, when I learned that my last op was the kind designed to kill me, I packed up and left. That’s the thing about being engineered. When the next model comes on the market, what do you do with the old ones?”

  Grant let that sink in.

  He really was better off not knowing.

  “This is the turn.” Ghost sat forward.

  Grant fought his urge to get there fast and pulled his foot off the accelerator, making the final turn at a slower rate.

  They were in a shopping center. A strip mall type area with boutiques and salons. At the very end of the lane was a square structure. It looked like an old house that had been converted to some sort of store, but wasn’t in use. Or shouldn’t be. The cars sitting around it made the shutdown theory suspect.

  Ghost pulled a gun from under his jacket and checked the chamber. “Let’s go see if anyone’s home.”

  Grant studied the map for a moment.

  This was the spot.

  Melody had been here. But was she still inside?

  Grant clenched the gear shift to keep from killing the engine. “Luke wanted us to check it out. I’m pretty sure he didn’t want us to go knock on doors without back-up.”

  “You really just want to sit here and see if she sticks her head out and waves? Because we can do that. We can also stick our thumbs up our asses and do nothing if that’s your speed, too.”

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’re an asshole?”

  Ghost barked a laugh and grinned. It wasn’t a friendly expression and Grant doubted the man smiled often.

  “Only every day of my life,” Ghost said. “Come on. Tell the bastards you were just keeping me in check.”

  Ghost got out, leaving Grant no choice but to kill the engine and follow.

  The silence was eerie given the location. Not a soul stirred and the only sound was that from the main road a quarter mile away.

  Grant and Ghost circled the small building, but the windows were dark and nothing moved. They returned to the front door.

  Ghost moved in, grasping the front door and pulling it open.

  It wasn’t even locked.

  Grant only had a moment to process that before the metallic scent of blood and human waste drifted to him. His insides knotted up and he crowded in behind Ghost who flipped on the lights.

  “Shit,” he muttered and dragged a hand over his face.

  “What?” Grant glimpsed no fewer than three bodies.

  “Ethan’s lose.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  Ghost gestured to the carnage. “No bullet holes, all clean cuts to arteries. It’s what I’d do if I were trying to take out a large number of people without making a sound.”

  “We don’t know that.” Grant grit his teeth and moved forward, staying out of the blood.

  Ghost followed behind him, muttering more curses every time they found a new cluster of bodies.

  Some of these men Grant recognized from Ibiza.

  They went room by room, finally ending in the only one that didn’t have blood.

  The silver handcuff hanging from the wall was enough of an indicator to know that this really was where Melody had been. But where was she now?

  “Did she get away?” Grant wanted to believe that.

  Ghost shook his head. “Ethan either killed her or took her, for God only knows what reason.”

  “Then we find him. Ethan doesn’t speak English. He has no passport, no money, no way out of the country. How hard can it be to find him? That must be why he took Melody.”

  Ghost just looked at him, and deep down Grant knew that Melody’s chances weren’t good. But he had to believe, he had to hope.

  17.

  Tuesday. Unknown.

  Melody’s toes hurt.

  That was her first coherent thought as her mind rose from the groggy sleep of the dead. She remained exactly where she was, as if even her subconscious was aware that there was a predator nearby.

  The handcuff secured to her left wrist bit into her skin and her fingers were numb, no doubt from the way she’d been laying.

  She strained to listen harder. There was no sound of traffic or horns. She couldn’t even hear someone walking around, the whish of fabric or the soft sounds of someone breathing.

  If she didn’t know better, she’d think she was alone.

  What did she smell?

  The air was musty and she recalled a vague memory from last night that included a sneezing fit.

  “I know you’re awake,” a man said slowly.

  He was so close his voice seemed to rumble across her skin.

  Melody sucked in a breath and her eyes popped open.

  Ethan sat next to the bed, his
clasped hands resting on the edge of the mattress. He was watching her.

  “Jesus.” She pushed up and glanced around the room, praying for an escape.

  They were in a small bedroom. The flat surfaces were dusty. Even the bare mattress she lay on had a thin layer of dust.

  The chain attached to her wrist clanged as she moved, reminding her that she was still a prisoner. A glance down at her body proved that she hadn’t been accosted while she slept.

  How had she managed to sleep?

  She lifted her free hand to her neck, the soreness alerting her to an ugly reality. She at Ethan.

  “You drugged me,” she said.

  “I had to.”

  She touched the bandage on the back of her neck where the subdermal tracker had been.

  “Yes, it’s gone,” he said.

  Melody leaned against the headboard. She’d been going somewhere with her thoughts before she’d passed out. It took a little effort to find the wisps of memory and continue following them.

  Ethan hadn’t hurt her, but he also hadn’t released her, which meant he wanted something. Her life had value to him.

  She could use that.

  “When did you learn to speak English again?” she asked.

  Ethan shrugged. “I listened.”

  “And you never replied? Never told them you understood them?”

  He frowned. “I can’t trust you.”

  “But you need me for something otherwise I wouldn’t still be alive.”

  “Killing you serves no purpose.”

  “You mean this time? You almost killed me once.” She watched his face, the way he didn’t react to even that statement.

  “If I did, it wasn’t personal.”

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I want answers. And I want to do to Liman what he did to me.” Now there was feeling behind those eyes. Ethan was angry.

  “What did he do to you?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Surely someone’s told you? Or tried to tell you?”

  Ethan pushed to his feet and paced across the room toward the closet. He opened it and stared at the empty space.

  She needed Ethan to see them as the same. She had to become a person to him. Someone he could identify with. “Your name was Ethan Turner. You know that much at least? You worked for the same company I do.”

  “Shut up.” He shoved the doors closed and turned to look at her. “You’re going to help me. I’ll let you live.”

  That sounded like a good bargain to her. But what was the catch?

  “Help you do what?” she asked.

  “Weren’t you listening?” Ethan frowned at her. “I’m going to destroy Liman.”

  “And then what?”

  “I guess I’ll figure out who I really am after that.” Ethan reached down and picked up a plastic bag. “Here. Eat quick. We need to move.”

  “Where are we going? Where are we?”

  Ethan lunged at her, planting his hands on either side of her hips and getting up in her face. “Do what you’re told.”

  Melody slid down a bit. Her heart raced as she was reminded that this man, despite his familiar face, wasn’t someone she knew or could trust.

  TUESDAY. AEGIS GROUP Headquarters, Chicago, Illinois.

  Two days.

  The last time Grant had seen Melody was Sunday when he’d watched her climb into the ambulance.

  He knew the statistics. Every hour that passed decreased the chances he’d find her alive, but he had to hope. Had to believe that so long as they hadn’t found a body, she was out there.

  The Lebanese’s safe house hadn’t revealed much, not that local authorities were sharing a lot. Understandably they were under the gun. The house store front was obviously some sort of covert operation. Of that there was no denying.

  Gavin and Zain had teamed up, scouring security footage from every available source. They’d found the car Ethan had stolen ten miles away. There’d been blood and Melody’s tracking device in the back seat. Or what was left of it. Ethan had dropped the device into a bottle of coke and the rest was history.

  Grant paced the jogging path around the PT yard. He was banned from the ops room for now, at least until he’d had some rest.

  Rest.

  How could he?

  He rounded the corner and saw a few of the girls who worked in the offices standing on the back patio near the grills. He doubted they had anything to share, but he headed toward them, anyway.

  “Hey, Grant,” Hannah called out. She was the daughter of one of a former employee and engaged to a guy who’d worked his way into the unique position of scouting safe houses and securing resources all across the world.

  “Morning.” Grant nodded and joined the ladies. “Anything new today?”

  Hannah smiled, but it was sad. “Nothing that I’ve heard, but I’m not in-the-know.”

  Grant nodded. It was as he suspected. “How’s Mason doing?”

  “Good.” Hannah’s smile brightened. “He’s on his way home from Panama. I’ll have to go pick him up later.”

  “Tell him thank you? I don’t know how he finds these places.” Grant shook his head.

  “He just knows good people.” Hannah grinned.

  “Hey, so, not to change the topic at all.” The other girl flashed Hannah a smile. “But, last night on my way home I saw lights in the old Turner house. You think Crawford is renting it again? I’d love to get out of my place.”

  “That’s weird.” Hannah frowned. “I haven’t heard anything about renting the place. Maybe someone went over there considering...?”

  The hair on the back of Grant’s neck rose.

  “The Turner house?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” Hannah nodded. “So this place used to be a summer camp way back when, right? There are a couple houses over on the west side of the property that used to be for camp employees and staff. Crawford and his family lived in the houses when they first opened the place, and later on he rented the houses to guys with families. But after what happened to Ethan he never let anyone move in there.”

  “Where is it?” Grant asked.

  Hannah frowned and studied him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hannah, where is the house?”

  Her face grew pale. “You think Ethan went back there? I’ll drive you.”

  Hannah took off, Grant on her heels. She had her keys in hand before they rounded the building and nearly ran into Nolan and Vaughn.

  “Someone was at the Turner house,” he called over his shoulder as he pushed past Nolan.

  “What?” Vaughn called out.

  Grant ignored them and dove into the passenger side of Hannah’s car. She slammed the car into reverse and whipped the two seater around so fast he nearly slid out of his seat. The tires screeched as they took off, down the drive and to the main road.

  “If you look through the trees, you can almost see the houses. That’s where Ethan and Travis both lived. It’s where my dad lived, too.”

  “Which one was Ethan’s?”

  “The first one.”

  “Stop at the road here and let me out, then you go back.” He reached for the door.

  “What? No way.”

  Grant turned to look at her. “Hannah, this man shot and nearly killed Melody once. I don’t want to explain to Mason how you got hurt. Understand?”

  Hannah turned onto the lane and slowed the car. Her face was twisted up in frustration.

  “Fine,” she said. “Go. But I’m calling the office.”

  “Good.” Grant got out and drew his sidearm. He hadn’t taken the gun off since the crash.

  He began jogging toward the house, knowing full well he was a human target if Ethan wanted to blow his brains out.

  The house was a single story brick structure. The grass was trimmed short and the exterior maintained. He’d have never known it was vacant.

  Grant reached the side of the house and peered into the windows, but the blinds and curtains
blocked his view.

  He circled around to the front door, but it was still firmly secured, so he continued his exploration of the property. All of the windows were uniformly locked down. It wasn’t until he got around to the back yard that he saw how someone—presumably Ethan—had gotten inside.

  The back door’s window was broken, glass scraped to one side of the stoop.

  Grant swallowed and reached out, opening the door. He stepped to the side as the door swung open and listened.

  No scuffling or rush of movement. No shots fired.

  “Ethan?” Grant called out. “Melody?”

  No answer.

  Grant turned, gun up, and stood in the doorway.

  Dim light filtered through the windows, making the footprints on the linoleum stick out even more.

  Someone had been in the house.

  Grant reached in and flipped on the lights. He moved from room to room, doing his best to not touch anything or disturb more of the dust. By the time he’d searched every room it was clear.

  Whoever had been there was gone.

  Was it Ethan? And if it was, why return to the home he didn’t remember? Or was he remembering? Was that why he’d killed his former team? What the hell was going on? And why did he have Melody?

  TUESDAY. HOTEL, CHICAGO, Illinois.

  Liman laid out everything he’d spent the last thirty-six hours gathering. When he’d left their safe house he’d wanted to take supplies with him, but didn’t dare beyond some cash. All he’d had was what he was wearing, some jewelry and a couple things he knew he could hawk at the pawn shop around the corner.

  It had taken some work hustling the goods he had, turning them into more profitable items, but he had a couple thousand in US dollars, three new to him guns and a small collection of ammunition, and if all went as planned, in another day he’d have a passport that would grant him an escape from this dammed country.

  He knew he couldn’t go home. That bridge was burned. As soon as his government learned about the utter disaster, they’d want to bring him in for questioning. It wouldn’t end in a simple debrief. There were no answers he could give his superiors that they’d accept. The only true end would be Liman’s death.

  He had no intention of dying any time soon.