He nodded. “We served together. In SF.”
Whoa.
Betrayed by a fellow Green Beret? Erin stopped and turned to face him, incredulous. “And they think he’s the one who set us—you—up?”
His jaw tensed. “Evidence looks pretty convincing so far.”
“But you think they’re wrong.”
Wade lowered the knife to the cutting board, his fingers still wrapped tight around the handle. “It’s way over the line, even for him.”
She waited for him to continue, but he stared down at the knife, seeming lost in his own thoughts. Treading carefully, she asked, “What happened?”
He cut her a sideways glance, then back down as he resumed cutting, his strokes even and precise. “We had a kind of rivalry going in our SF days. Friendly one. But after, when we did contract work together, things changed. During one mission things turned to shit and he made a bad call. I stepped in to correct it, and after that…” He shrugged, the motion tight, stiff. “He blamed me for the smear on his reputation. And that guy holds a helluva grudge. But setting me up to die through Rahim’s network? I don’t think so. He’s a piece of work, yeah, but he’s a patriot and loyal to his brothers. He might hate my guts, but that still doesn’t mean he’d do something like this.”
She digested all that in silence, afraid to speak in case it made him clam up. He’d just strung more words together in the past minute than he had the entire time she’d known him, with the exception of the conversation about Rahim last night. “Well, I guess they’ll find out the real story once they question him.”
He nodded, and it seemed like his shoulders weren’t as rigid as they had been at the start of the conversation. “Whaddya want me to do with this pepper?” He gestured at the neatly sliced pile of red cubes with the knife.
She grabbed a big bowl from the cupboard beside the sink and set it next to him. “Here, just toss them in there.” She pan fried some sliced-up chicken breasts while he finished prepping the veggies. When it was ready she tossed the veggies in some dressing, plated the salad with some chicken and sliced strawberries on top, then added some crumbled goat cheese and chopped pistachio nuts. “Look okay?” she asked him.
“Looks great.” He took the plates. “Want to eat in the living room?”
“Sure.” She followed him in and took a seat on the couch. He handed her a plate and stood there hesitating a moment, but rather than sit on the floor as he had last night, he took the opposite end of the couch, sitting cross-legged with the plate balanced on his calves. She watched him fork up a bite and chew it, her gaze drawn to his mouth as he made a sound of pleasure. “This is good.”
“Thanks.” And way better for his digestive system than the pizza had been.
They ate in companionable silence and he took the dishes into the kitchen, telling her he’d clean up. Not about to argue, she turned on the TV and was half-engrossed in a show when he came back out. He stood in the entryway, as though unsure whether he should come in or not. “Want to watch a movie together?” she asked.
He put his hands in his pockets and gave a shrug. “Sure.” He sat back on the far end of the couch.
She flipped through the menu and settled on an action flick. “This one okay?” she asked, glancing at him. He probably hadn’t watched a movie in years.
“Sure.”
She turned it on and tried to get into it, but with each passing minute she was more and more aware of the distance between them. He wasn’t stiff exactly, though she could tell he wasn’t completely comfortable, either. She wasn’t sure if it was because they were sitting on the couch alone together, or whether he was still thinking about Schafer’s possible involvement in all of this. “You want me to go?”
He looked at her in surprise, eyebrows drawing together. “No, why?”
“I feel like I’m making you uncomfortable.”
He huffed out a rueful laugh. “You’re not. It’s just…everything,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Weird sitting here watching a movie when I know he’s still out there, that’s all.”
That wasn’t all, and she knew it. They both knew it. He was attracted to her too, she was pretty sure, and didn’t want to acknowledge that. She didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable around her though. “I bet. But I’m okay going upstairs to read or something if you’d rather be alone. Or we could—I dunno, play cards or something for a while.” She mentally rolled her eyes at herself.
Cards, Erin? Really?
His mouth quirked. “No, this is fine. Thanks, though.”
They resumed watching the movie. Partway through she lost interest and started to fade. It’d been a long couple of days and she was smoked. Only the corner of the couch wasn’t very comfortable to rest her head in. She shifted around to find a better spot and closed her eyes. Sometime later she felt her head droop and she stirred, still half asleep. A moment later a gentle hand curved around her shoulder. Her eyes snapped open to find Wade right beside her, drawing her up and toward him.
She went willingly, a little shocked when he actually drew her head down to rest against his hard shoulder and draped an arm across her shoulders. She stayed very still for a few seconds, but when he didn’t move and didn’t seem tense, she sighed in contentment and shut her eyes. His clean, soapy scent wrapped around her and his body heat soothed her. She was affectionate by nature and loved to cuddle, and he made her feel so safe. But feeling all that hot, hard strength up against her… Arousal bloomed inside her, a slow, heavy throb warring with exhaustion, but exhaustion won out.
She surfaced briefly sometime later when he shifted her again. Blinking in the darkness, she realized sleepily that the TV was off. He eased her onto her side to curl up lengthwise on the couch, and drew the throw blanket over her. Already sliding off to sleep as he stood up, she felt the gentle stroke of his hand over her hair before his hushed footsteps moved away.
Rahim pulled the hem of his T-shirt over the weapon tucked into his waistband and pushed his sunglasses up on the bridge of his nose as he exited the rental SUV. He had a backup strapped to his ankle, hidden by his jeans. The heat hit him the moment he stepped out onto the gravel parking lot. Central Mexico had a different sort of heat than he was used to, more humid, but still a shock after being in the air-conditioned vehicle. That kind of luxury had been a shock on its own, and not an unwelcome one.
He ran a hand over his closely shaved beard and tugged the brim of his ball cap down lower on his forehead as he walked to the concrete building. He’d dyed his hair, eyebrows and facial hair dark, but it wouldn’t be enough to fool facial recognition software if any intelligence agency got a good shot of him. Three other vehicles were parked out front. He rapped on the steel door and pushed it open, one hand on the butt of his weapon at the small of his back.
“In here,” a familiar voice called from the back room.
Rahim stepped into the darkened interior of the warehouse and shut the door behind him, the thud echoing in the cavernous space. Male voices speaking Spanish floated out to him as he crossed the concrete floor, alert but relaxed enough. The doorway led to an auto shop they’d converted for their purposes. Two Mexican men looked up from the blueprints they were going over when he entered. He nodded at them and shifted his attention to the tall man emerging from behind a pallet of crates.
“Paul, how are you?” Rahim asked him in English.
The twenty-six year old American shrugged his bony shoulders and ran a hand through the jaw-length brown hair he’d grown out in a half-assed attempt to disguise his identity. “Fine. How was your flight?”
“Smooth as silk.” The private luxury jet had landed at an air strip an hour outside of Mexico City. No one had even checked his passport. He was paying for everything in cash, and so far not even the Mexican authorities knew he was in the country. “What’ve you got for me?”
Paul motioned into the small office behind him. “There are two designs I wanted to show you.”
Rahim placed his hands on the small desk and bent over the schematics. Both compact devices, both good designs as far as he could tell. He looked up at Paul. “Which one do you think’s our best shot?” It still rankled that he’d been unable to secure the Strontium-90 he’d originally planned to use, but a less potent material would have to suffice now that the timeline for the attack had been moved up by several weeks.
“This one,” the younger man said, tapping the second design. “The configuration’s better, simpler and will decrease the chance of glitches.”
“Let’s go with it then.” He straightened, nodded toward the two other men beyond the office door. “They speak English?”
“Not really, no. I thought you’d prefer it that way.”
“I do. Good thinking.”
Paul smiled, seeming pleased with the praise. “I’ve got pretty much everything I need, except for the…material.”
“I’ve taken care of it. It’s in transit.” He asked a few more questions about the design for the device and the crew in place, and right on cue, his burner phone rang. Checking the number first, he answered. “You got it?”
“
Sí
, just left Mexico City,” the man answered in a thick Spanish accent. “Where do you want us to bring it?”
“I’ll let you know. Transfer the load and disguise it, then find a place to wait overnight. I’ll call you tomorrow with the details.” He ended the call and smiled at Paul. “Got it. I can have it here by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay.” Paul ran a hand through his hair again, a nervous gesture. “What kind of timeline are we looking at? It’ll take me a day or two to assemble everything and—”
“I want it on the ship two days from now.”
Paul gaped at him. “But that’s…”
Rahim raised an eyebrow. “What?”
The other man pushed out a breath. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will.” He smiled a little, clapped Paul on the back, and Rahim was pleased to see the other man wasn’t relieved by the gesture. The engineer knew how closely Rahim would be watching this whole process. He also knew how easily Rahim could do away with Paul so that no one would ever find his body should he fail to complete the bomb or do anything to jeopardize the operation. He was being paid well for this, maybe too well, but then, nuclear physicists willing to work on this kind of project weren’t easy to come by.
“Better get started,” Paul muttered and brushed past Rahim to talk to the other men waiting outside the office.
Rahim kept an eye on them as they began to assemble the parts, and did a thorough inspection of the warehouse. He looked for cameras and checked for wires, even though the likelihood of anyone knowing what they were up to was minimal. Another call came in, this one from Safir, who was back in Karachi.
“Is everything in place?” Safir asked him in Pashto.
“So far. We’re still on schedule.”
Safir let out a relieved sigh. “I also have some good news.”
Rahim’s attention sharpened. “What?”
“I got a call from someone in our network. Apparently they found some interesting information that was leaked into the chatter stream, and when he checked it seems it’s from that American informant who contacted us before.”
Rahim kept his voice low, watching the men as they worked. “Go on.”
“The informant gave a possible location for Sandberg. And the woman.”
Something stilled inside him and his heart picked up speed. “Where?”
“In a small town in rural Virginia. They’re staying together in a house.”
Rahim frowned. Had Sandberg really been married all this time? Or was Erin Kelly merely a fellow agent? “How reliable is this source?”
“Ours? He’s reliable. And the American contact was accurate the last time. It’s worth checking out.”
Yes, it was. “Give me what you have and I’ll look into it.” Safir detailed everything, including the farmhouse in the country. “If it’s true, they’ll have security on them.”
“Of course. Shall I gather a team together and get them to Virginia?”
“No. I’ll check everything and take care of this myself.” Because it was personal. So personal Rahim was tempted to be part of the assassination himself, if the location was real. “The equipment will be on the ship in two days’ time and I’m accompanying it.”
“I wish you’d reconsider. I’d be honored to go with it instead—”
“No. It has to be me.” He didn’t trust anyone else to oversee this first, most critical move in shifting the war to American soil. Carried out correctly, it would cause mass panic. The stock market would flounder. Fear and chaos and panic would rule. Everyone would be afraid to stay in the city. Local medical facilities would be overwhelmed. The cleanup alone would be insanely expensive. Infrastructure would grind to a halt, at least temporarily. Tourism would decline sharply as well in the days and weeks after the attack, having profound impact on the economy that would last for years.
He couldn’t wait to watch the dominoes begin to fall.
“I’ll take care of everything and get back to you once I know more,” he said to Safir, anticipation and excitement running hot in his veins. Ending the call, he stood off to the side and formulated a plan as he watched the men assemble the metal frame of the device. A slow smile spread across his face at the thought of what was coming and the revenge he would exact on Sandberg.
I’m coming for you, Wade
.
****
Waiting in a lounge area just down the hall from the director’s office, Wade paused in reading a file and glanced up at the TV mounted on the wall. The news anchor was reporting on some breaking news about a missing truck carrying nuclear material from a lab in California to Mexico City.
Instantly he tossed the file aside and grabbed the remote to turn it up. The truck was transporting material from a medical facility in San Diego and had been stolen sometime within the last six hours after crossing the border at Tijuana. Officials were scrambling to locate the truck and security agencies were concerned about what could happen if the material fell into the wrong hands.
Wade had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly whose hands were involved.
He shoved to his feet and strode down the hall to the director’s office. The secretary looked up at him but waved him on back when she saw the look on his face. The door was shut. He knocked briskly. Robert always kept it locked. A few moments later it opened and Robert let him in. Three other men Wade recognized sat around the desk, including his handler, Bill.