Heroes In Uniform (14 page)

Nicola looked from one woman to the next. She could identify all of them. Then she eyed the men. They too were catalogued in her memory, but she didn’t know what each did for Smooth or how the money funneled in and out of his Swiss banks.

The CIA was right to be disappointed in her. Beth should put her on desk duty at the Farm until she was an old biddy talking about her days in the spy game.
Shit
. She really needed to talk to Beth.

In the corner, Antilla’s head of security barked orders. There was no telling what that crackpot might do. Nicola needed to get the hell out of here. Patio escape plan, round two. The butler touched her shoulder.

“Gabriella, would you like a glass of water?”

Him again? He was always around, always watching. “No,
grazie
.”

“May I get you a lemonade? The taste reminds me of sunset walks on the beach at night.”

She went from ignoring him to pinning him against the wall with a stare. “
Scuzi
?”

He spoke slower. More deliberate. “I said. Sunset walks on the beach. At night.”

Nicola processed his words. His look. It couldn’t be. Could it? “
Non capisco
. I do not understand.”

“Yes, you do.”

Yes, she did. The CIA had someone else in here. The butler. She should have known.

“Yes, I do.” She nodded, mapping out her next move. Did Beth know? The games. She hated all the games, and if this guy was here to make sure she did her job, she was going to lose her trademark cool. She hated being checked up on. Hated the doubt that she couldn’t pull the gig off. Then again, she hadn’t.

“I’ll get you a lemonade, or would you like to come with me?”

Hell, why not? “Yes. Of course.”

They made their way down an elaborate hall. Oil paintings of New England landscapes and native animals were framed in gilded boxes and lit by brass fixtures.

“They’re bringing you in,” he said as casually as if they talked about the change in the seasons.

“You?”

“No.”

“Why me?”

“Not my call.”

“Who else is here?” Or in other words, why was Cash here?

“Just the two of us.”

“I didn’t know about you. Maybe you don’t know about someone else.”

“Maybe.”

Not the answer she wanted, though she wouldn’t believe any answer he gave if it were a definite yes or no.

He handed her a drink and napkin from a side table. “Extraction directions are in your cocktail napkin. You leave tonight. Take this to the bathroom, and move as directed.”

“This is because of the patio?”

“What?”

“I was supposed to go to the dry cleaners tomorrow.”

“Change of plan.”

“Why?”

“Not sure, other than Antilla was eliminated.”

“What do we have on that?”

“Wasn’t us.”

“What—”

“You need to move. Go. Follow the directions. The extraction team is ready to pull you out in five minutes.”

The butler turned and walked away, leaving her, drink in hand. Nicola sipped her lemonade and headed for the specified bathroom. She took in the empty lounging area and vanity counters and entered a quiet bathroom stall, closing the door behind her. She unfolded the edges of the napkin. It was blank. What the hell?

She held it to the light. Nothing. No ink. No code. No marks.

She’d been made. Confirmed it herself. Fucking safe phrase wasn’t worth shit if someone unsafe knew it existed. Her pulse thumped in her neck. Her ears strained to hear the incoming attack. She was trapped, save the narrow window that opened two stories above a terrace. The window was tall but skinny. She might not fit. No time to overthink it, and thank God, she’d skipped dinner. Nicola chucked off her heels, lifted her skirt, and palmed her Beretta.

Despite grabbing a fancy, overstuffed pillow for use as a makeshift silencer, the shot was loud when she blew out the window. Hoisting herself up to the sill, she looked over her shoulder to see her extraction team,
courtesy of the butler, blow through the outer door. No time to second-guess her next move, and oh, the landing would hurt. Barefoot, she sucked in a breath and pushed through the shattered frame.

Glass shards scraped her chest and back as she sidestepped through. Teetering for a hot second on the outside, she realized that the window frame was too narrow. She couldn’t turn her head to look back at her attackers, but she felt hands grabbing at her dress. Before a hand could clamp around her calf, she leaped.

It felt like slow motion. Weightless, reaching for the sky, she floated in a sea of gold silk as her dressed billowed around her until she hit the manicured terrace lawn. Everything hurt. Her exit strategy wasn’t strategic, and it gave her zero chance to position for a tuck and roll, but it did do one very good thing. It kept dangerous men inside the house.

Bang. Bang. Pop.

The men were inside, but their guns shooting out the window had a wide open range. She pulled up as fast as she could manage. Dirt spat around her. Their shots missed but not by much. Nicola hobbled as fast as she could. They were, no doubt, regrouping and busting ass to get her on the terrace.

As she half-limped, half-ran, she tried to assess her injuries. Nothing broken. Definitely going to have to make a chiropractor appointment. Blood had ruined her gorgeous dress, thanks to the window exit. Definitely a sprained elbow and wrist.

The thicket of the woods loomed ahead, and she closed in on it, praying she’d reach the dense cover. Only then did she realize that she still gripped the subcompact gun but had lost her purse, and with it her untraceable cell phone. How the shit was she going to call Beth?

First plan of action: get far away from this mansion. Maybe stumble all the way to another mansion, break in, and use their phone. She jammed her bare foot against the sharp side of a downed branch.

“Son of a bitch!” It hurt like an ice pick stab, shooting straight from her heel to her hip bone. She lost her balance, tumbling down the hill, head first, sprained arm next. Her throbbing foot screamed in pain.

Nicola came to rest at the bottom of the hill. Dress thoroughly ruined. Bleeding top to bottom.

“Get up, girl,” she told herself.

Nothing moved except for her lips. No, she’d worked too hard, had too much to prove. A little thing like this wasn’t going to take her down. She was too freakin’ smart to stumble like a newbie recruit fresh off the Farm.

“Nothing that can’t heal. Get up. Now.”

Her skin prickled. She wasn’t alone. In a heartbeat, she was on her busted feet, gun drawn, pivoting intuitively. She spun twice, focused her hearing, and took one step forward, her foot touching the gravel side of a rural road. A dozen yards up, an SUV idled in the dark. Three men the size of NFL linebackers stood frozen like oversized yard gnomes.

And they weren’t the men who chased her.

She readied her Beretta. The slide echoed in the moonless night.

One man put his hands up. The two others straightened as if they’d been hunched, ready to throw down on a Maine backwoods road.

She took a step forward. Damn this pitch-black night. She couldn’t see anything more than male outlines. After her run-in with Cash Garrison and then the men who’d shot at her… Lord only knew who else was in on this game.

“Turn around. Move away from the car. Now!” She needed their set of wheels. Maybe she’d strike spy gold and find a charged cell phone.

The man with his hands up took two strides back. Without communicating, the two other men took two steps forward. She did not have time for this. The men from the mansion might be driving this same road or trailing her through the woods. She limped forward, trying not to groan when her injured foot hit gravel again.

“I said move it.” She shuffled toward the driver’s door.

“Nicola?”

Not Cash.

Not Cash by a million years. Far worse. Far more confusing. She couldn’t handle this. Nicola leaped toward the idling car.

* * *

David leaned against the wall as he heard the pop of gunfire in the bathroom. He loosened the god-awful uniform tie he wore in his role as a butler. Hopefully, Nicola was taken out in one shot, no need for it to get messy.

Tonight had been unexpected. The assassination caused several problems, but most importantly, it affected his retire-from-the-CIA plan. Smooth had paid David handsomely to keep him in the know about investigations into the gun lord’s illegal activities and terrorist connections.

Evidently, David missed a memo. With Smooth and Nicola dead, his backup plan formed. He’d check in with his handler at the CIA, get his marching orders, and, until he could find another buyer of CIA secrets, he’d lift enough ammo and arms to pad his retirement account, and go back to his pain in the ass day job as a CIA operative.

And in the unlikely event that Nicola escaped, he would finish her off later. She hadn’t figured out the central piece of information that could topple Smooth Enterprises, but why chance the risk? That one secret he’d kept from the CIA secured his future.

Garrison’s Creed
: Chapter Three

The woman ran to the open driver’s door, actively ignoring the men, hiding her face. Too damn late. Cash and Roman sprang for the open rear door, pancaking one on top of the other on the backseat as the woman slammed the driver’s door.

Pulling off of Roman, Cash slapped his hand around the car ceiling, searching for the dome light switch.

Click.
Dull light illuminated the truth.

The gun pointed toward the backseat, but the woman still didn’t look at them, avoiding their stares. He could easily disarm her. Roman could too. Neither did.

“Nicola?” Roman rasped again.

Her arm trembled, vibrating the gun as she flipped the safety into place, but her finger stayed at the ready. “Please get out. Just go,” she whispered.

That was her voice. It had been her face. Cash looked at Roman. No, he didn’t know. The man was as dumbstruck and hurting as he was. All they could see was the back of a bloody shoulder and arm and leaves sticking in messy hair.

Rocco approached the open door by Roman, perhaps not seeing the showdown. “What’s doing?”

They ignored him.

“Nicola.” Roman’s voice cracked. “Am I going nuts?”

Cash looked at Roman and saw the confusion tearing his world apart, just like it had his. He wore the evidence on his hardened face.

Her unsteady arm lowered, placing the gun on the front console. Her ratty-haired head dropped, and then the face Cash used to adore eyed them both. Her bottom lip quaked, and her eyes spilled tears.

She closed them, and more tears cascaded down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

Roman busted out his door, knocking Rocco over in the process. He could have torn it off its hinges. The man wouldn’t have cared. The driver’s door flew open, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling his baby sister tightly to his chest. Cash had no idea what words came out of Roman’s mouth. It wasn’t his place to listen.

Their tender moment was shut down when she pushed him off. “Are you here to take me out?”

No one breathed a word. Cash couldn’t understand her involvement with Antilla Smooth and couldn’t bear breaking it to Roman that he’d seen her all over the warmonger. It tore his heart apart all over again, just like the day they’d lost her.

But they hadn’t lost her. She was alive and sitting in front of him.

Nicola spoke up again. “Who do you work for?”

What was she talking about?

Roman seemed to read his mind. “Nic, what are you talking about?”

“Why are you here?”

“You’re alive. Let’s start there.”

“Go away, Roman. It’s better this way. If you’re not here to—”

“What are you talking about? You’re alive. You’re coming home. Mom and Dad… they, we buried you. We—”

“You have to leave. Now. If I can’t have the car—” She tried to get past him, but he locked her against his chest. “Let go. Damn you, Roman. You don’t understand. We can’t be here.”

“You’re in trouble. We can help. We can fix this.”

She moved before either Roman or Cash could react. Gun in hand, pressed against her brother’s chest. “I love you,” she sobbed. “Don’t make me.”

Roman backed up, hands in the air. “Who are you? What’s happened to you?” The tenor of his voice was clear. He’d moved on from shock to fury. At least Roman was catching up with Cash in the what-the-fuck department.

“Go away,” she hissed, wiping at tears with the back of her hand.

“I can’t. You’re my—”

Nicola nudged the Beretta back toward him, groaning when she used her arm. “I need your car. Tell me how to contact you. I’ll explain this. I promise. But I have to go. Now. I—”

“I don’t think so.”

“Goddamn it, Roman. If you’re here to kill me, do it. Otherwise, get the fuck out of this car. You too, Cash. Move it.”

Kill her?

Gone were her tears. In the span of a second, the emotion was gone. The steely eyed woman was in business mode.

Ten years had passed. Ten long-assed years. Who knew what she’d been doing? Clearly, bad things with bad people.

Cash spoke. “You’re hurt.”

She rocketed a glare at him. “I’ll be dead if you don’t leave.”

Cash continued, hoping to make inroads even after Roman tried-and-burned. “We can help you. Whatever kind of trouble you’re in—”

“I’m not in trouble. Get out!”

“No,” Cash and Roman said in unison.

Click-click. The slide of the Glock turned them both to stone. Their third man, Rocco, had Nicola dead center in his close range sights.

“Get that fucking gun out of my sister’s face,” Roman said, cold as ice.

Rocco’s face fell. He lowered the gun. “We need to get the fuck out of here. Work your family shit out in therapy. Buy some self-help books. I don’t care. But go now.”

Nicola dropped her gun again, pressing her head to the steering wheel.

Roman patted her snarled hair. “Nic, it’ll be okay. Whatever’s happened to you, we’ll work through it. We’ll protect you.” He snaked his arms around his little sister and hugged. With an efficient lift, he had her up and in his arms.