Authors: Paige Tyler
something couple dressed in club clothes sitting at a table near the window. Landon and Ivy ordered coffee,
then sat down at a table in the back corner.
Ivy sipped her latte. “So, how come everyone calls you Captain, but Angelo calls you by your name?”
“You noticed that, huh? Because we both used to be enlisted. We went through Infantry School and
Special Forces training together. After that, we both got assigned to the 5th Group. That history gives him
some perks.”
She frowned. “Wait a second. I’m confused. I thought you were an officer.”
“I went to Officer Candidate School when I was an E5. It’s where enlisted guys go to become officers,”
he added, then chuckled. “Angelo’s actually the one who talked me into going green to gold. Thought I’d be
good officer material. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I should be offended, but he turned out to be right.”
Her lips curved. “Obviously. Wasn’t it a little weird for you guys when you went back to the 5th as his
commander, though?”
“It was at first, but Angelo’s an amazing troop. He played it square. Never even let on we were friends.”
“Why didn’t he become an officer, too?”
“I tried to talk him into it, but he’s just not programmed to be an officer.”
“What do you mean?”
“An officer has to be able to put up with a lot of politics and bullshit. Angelo prefers to call it like he
sees it and shoot anything that looks like it needs to be shot.” Landon glanced at her over the rim of his cup.
“It’s selfish of me, but I’m glad he didn’t. If he had, he would have gotten assigned to another team and
he’s a damn good soldier.”
She smiled. “A damn good friend, too.”
A good enough friend to point out how much Landon would lose if he screwed up this partnership with
Ivy. Which was exactly what he’d needed to hear right now.
Chapter 9
Kendra intercepted Ivy in the lobby the moment she got to the DCO offices on Monday. “John wants
you and Landon in the conference room ASAP. I’ll go round up your partner.”
Ivy opened her mouth to ask what was up, but Kendra had already darted down the hallway. Sighing,
she went into the conference room and took a seat.
Landon came in five minutes later, a cup in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other. “Hey.”
“Hey.” At least he’d been smart enough to grab coffee. Could she get to the break room and back before
John came in?
Landon sat down across from her, then opened the brown bag and pulled out a monster-sized cream-
filled donut with chocolate on top. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten breakfast.
“Want half?”
Ivy lifted a brow. “Are you serious? That thing probably has enough calories to feed a small nation.”
He chuckled. “I thought you might say that, so I bought you this instead.” He pulled out a muffin
covered in rolled oats and handed it to her. “The woman behind the counter said it was healthy.”
Ivy stared down at the muffin. Wow, a guy who realized she probably wanted to eat something other
than a cream-filled time bomb. Or a can of cat food, like her previous partner had brought her. The jerk
would drop it in her lap and make some snide remark about making sure he got something with a pop top
since the store didn’t sell can openers. It had annoyed the hell out of her.
“The muffin okay?”
She looked up to see Landon regarding her curiously. She smiled. “It’s great. Thanks. That was nice of
you.”
He flashed her a grin. “I’m a nice guy. Which is why I brought you this to go with it.” He reached into
the bag again and pulled out a small cup of coffee. “No milk.”
Before she could get too enamored by him, he dipped into the bag one more time and brought out a
blue ball of yarn, then rolled it across the table to her. If Dave had done something like that, it would have
been condescending, but with Landon, it was touching.
“Very funny.”
Just then John and another man walked into the conference room. She barely had time to snatch the
offending ball of string and hide it under the table on her lap.
Landon let out a soft chuckle. “I knew you’d like it but didn’t figure you’d get so possessive about it
already.”
John came around to the head of the table and turned on the computer that was hooked up to the
projector. “What was that?
“Nothing, John.” Landon gave her a roguish smile. “We were just talking about a toy I bought for my
cat.”
His
cat? Ivy knew she shouldn’t, but for some ridiculous reason, she liked the way that sounded. It
probably had something to do with how much fun she had dancing with Landon at the club the other night.
As embarrassing as it was to admit, it was the closest she’d been to sex in a long time, and she’d been
turned on like crazy. If Diaz hadn’t interrupted them, she might have done something she would have
regretted. Like slid her hand down his chest to the obvious bulge in his jeans.
She wasn’t the only one who’d been aroused. For all his cool, professional demeanor, Landon had been
horny as hell—she could smell it. Her partner put off a particularly scrumptious pheromone when he was
turned on. It wasn’t fair for him to smell that good.
John looked up sharply, a frown creasing his brow. “You have a cat?”
“Oh, yeah. An exotic long-hair beauty.” Landon sent another grin her way. “But she’s picky. Never likes
anything I buy her.”
Ivy kicked him under the table hard enough to make him grunt.
Thankfully, John didn’t notice. He introduced the man who’d come in with him as Evan Lloyd from the
intel branch, then clicked the computer keys. Two photos appeared on the screen. One was of a pretty
woman in her thirties with long, blond hair. The other was of a slightly older man with gray touching the
sides of his hair and sprinkling his well-trimmed beard.
“The woman is Doctor Zarina Sokolov. She works at the Minsk Institute of Research in Moscow. She’s
an expert in DNA splicing and manipulation, among other things too technical for me to understand. The
man is Doctor Jean Renard. He works for a French pharmaceutical firm outside of Paris called
Pharmaceutiques Nouveaux. His specialty is in the emerging science of…” He looked at his notes.
“Segment-specific nucleases.”
“Nucleases are enzyme proteins that break down select portions of the DNA strand,” Evan said.
Landon looked from the intel guy to John. “Outside of working in the same field, how are Zarina
Sokolov and Jean Renard connected?”
“They both disappeared over four months ago,” John said.
Ivy peeled the wrapper off her oat muffin. “And you assume foul play?”
“Not at first. The cases were a thousand miles apart, being investigated by separate local police agencies
who thought both Sokolov and Renard had some kind of midlife crisis. That they simply left home and
never came back. But Renard’s wife had a friend in INTERPOL by the name of Giraud and got him to dig
deeper.”
Landon took a big bite out of the cream-filled donut. Ivy licked her lips. It might be fattening as hell,
but it looked damn good.
“Giraud discovered Renard’s disappearance had similarities to Sokolov’s, which sent up a red flag,”
John continued. “Even though they worked in the same field, they’d never met. There’s nothing to indicate
they’d even heard of each other.”
Ivy nibbled her muffin and took a swig of coffee. Somehow Landon had known exactly how she took
it—plenty sweet.
“But then Giraud stumbled on something interesting,” John said. “Sokolov and Renard were both
approached by the same headhunter a few days before they disappeared. No one knew about it because
both doctors turned down the offers, but Giraud found a business card for the headhunting agency in
Renard’s office. It turned out to be a dummy corporation. Giraud dug through fake documents of
incorporation and email traffic until the trail led to this man.”
Another face appeared on the screen. Middle-aged, he had close-cropped hair and eyes so cold they
made Ivy shiver. He was the kind of man who looked like he enjoyed pulling the wings off butterflies.
“This is Keegan Stutmeir, former East German Stasi Secret Police and currently wanted on a couple
dozen international arms dealing charges. We’re not sure what use he’d have for Sokolov and Renard, and
unfortunately, Giraud was murdered before he could uncover anything else.”
Stutmeir was the guy she and Landon had heard John mention the other day.
Landon unscrewed the cap from the bottle of milk. “Stutmeir?”
“Almost certainly,” John said. “Giraud’s apartment was ransacked, and his field notes and laptop were
missing. Fortunately, he kept all his notes backed up on an INTERPOL server, which is how we know
about Stutmeir.”
Ivy reached across the table and grabbed the milk from Landon’s hand so she could add some to her
coffee, then gave it back to him. “Where do we come in?”
“Two more DNA experts went missing here in the U.S. about six weeks ago,” Evan answered. “Both
within a few days of each other. Same as Sokolov and Renard.”
Landon frowned. “Why are we just hearing about it now?”
John sighed. “The Department of Homeland Security threat recognition software picked up on the data
pattern, but no one knew what to make of it.”
“Intel finally filtered down from Canada that Stutmeir had slipped into the States through their border.
We think he’s behind the latest kidnappings.” Evan pressed a key on the computer and two more faces
joined the rest on the screens. “Sarah Beacon, one of the top researchers for the Human Genome Project,
and Mitch Dowling, a senior scientist studying genetic adaptation of pathogens for the Centers for Disease
Control.”
“Dowling is the one who finally tripped the alarm,” John said. “Every expert at the CDC is red-flagged.
Something happens to them, we know about it.”
“So a high-tech arms dealer is kidnapping DNA, genetic, and disease control experts,” Ivy said. “That
kind of points to a bioweapon, right?”
John glanced at Evan, his mouth twitching. “Told you we could skip the ramp-up and get straight to the
point.” He turned back to her and Landon. “It’s your job to find Stutmeir and confirm if he’s holding the
scientists prisoners and whether he’s developing a bioweapon. If you can figure out whom he’s planning on
selling it to and when, that’s a plus. But be careful. If the information out of Canada is correct, Stutmeir has
a sizable group of mercenaries with him.
“Once you find Stutmeir and have ascertained the situation, it’ll be your call on how to handle it. You’ll
have access to anything you need, be it a hostage rescue situation or a complete destroy and sanitize
mission.” He gave them a meaningful look. “I’m giving you a lot of leeway on this because we don’t have a
clue about exactly what’s going on. No matter what else happens, you are not to allow Stutmeir to develop
and put a high-grade biological weapon on the black market. You’re authorized to do anything to stop it—
including killing the scientists he’s holding hostage.”
Ivy saw Landon’s jaw flex at that, but he didn’t say anything. She didn’t like the idea of killing innocent
people any more than he did, and she prayed it didn’t come to that.
John and Evan discussed a few more key points, then left. The moment they walked out, Ivy pulled the
ball of yarn out and tossed it at Landon. He caught it in one hand.
“What? You don’t like the color?”
Smiling, she took the top folder off the stack John left and opened it. Zarina Sokolov gazed back at Ivy,
the woman’s blue eyes smiling. Ivy quickly looked away and focused on reading Sokolov’s file. She and
Landon might have to kill the doctor. Getting personally attached to her would only spell trouble.
“Man, Stutmeir is one mean bastard,” Landon muttered. “Have you found anything to suggest he’s part
of a larger syndicate?”
“He surrounds himself with a lot of muscle, but I haven’t seen anything to indicate he’s working with
anyone. Check this out, though.”
Landon came around the table to read over her shoulder, and suddenly, Stutmeir’s known associates
didn’t seem so interesting anymore. She found herself taking several deep breaths to get more of his scent
into her lungs. Which completely distracted her. He drove her crazy.
“Looks like a lot of ex-KGB and former Warsaw Pact Special Forces types.”
“A couple sound downright nasty.” She tilted her head to gaze up at him. Bad idea. She clenched her
hands into fists to resist the urge to run her fingers over the trace of stubble on his jaw. “Any thoughts on
what our first move should be?”
“Beacon and Dowling are the most recent abductees, so I say we start there.”
They grabbed the folders and left the conference room so they could talk to Kendra about plane tickets
and badges. As they rounded a corner, she saw Clayne coming down the hall toward them, scowling.
Another fight was all they needed.