It's Always Been You (31 page)

Caitlin settled back into the sanctuary of his embrace, and closed her eyes. Before she fell into a deep sleep, the last thing she felt was Travis tightening his arms around her, brushing a kiss on top of her head.

*****

Another two days passed. The men were playing cards. Caitlin was in Travis’s study pounding away on her laptop. Sometimes Travis would see her on social networking websites, sometimes in hacker chatrooms. He had not brought up the topic of the Hephaestus-Carpathian files again and figured she would get to it when she was ready.
 

Porter tried to call him once, but Travis let it go to voicemail. The admiral didn’t leave any message.

“I’ve got a full house,” Nate announced as he laid out his cards.

Sam threw his cards on the table in disgust. “I think this guy is a card shark.”

Travis shook his head, smiling. “I agree. I don’t know why I even bother and don’t just hand him the pot.”

“Sore losers,” Nate said as he gathered all the chips toward him.

Just then, there was a loud crash in his study, followed by a wail and a whimper.

All the men jumped to their feet and raced to the room.

“Caitlin!” Travis called as he burst through the doors and stopped.

She was staring at her laptop—wrecked on the floor of the study. She was hugging her own body in a protective gesture. And she was muttering, “No. No. No.”

“Babe, what is it?” Did the pressure finally get to her, and she got too frustrated and just smashed her laptop? He walked over to comfort her, but she shoved him away.

“No!” Her eyes were wild. “Don’t touch me! You all can’t make me do this. I won’t.”

Alarmed, because this was the first he’d seen her this way, he tried again, “Caitlin, tell me what’s wrong?”

“That thing is vile!” she shrieked at him. “They’re not getting anything out of me.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know!” Caitlin flung out the accusation before she dug her fingers into her hair. “I was a part of this. I can’t believe I was a part of this.”

Travis held out a hand. “Caitlin, you’re not sure. Didn’t you tell me you had a feeling you had locked it up so tight because you didn’t want anyone getting anything out of it?”

She was hyperventilating, and muttering to herself in a closed-off, broken way as if she had retreated into herself.
 
Travis took another step forward.
 

She ran to his desk and grabbed his letter knife, holding it against her carotid artery. Fuck! Travis’s entire body grew taut with tension and unadulterated fear.

“Caitlin!” His voice was loud and commanding. “Enough! Drop that knife and come here.”

“You’re not getting anything out of me!”

Her fingers tightened around the knife. Travis didn’t waste a second and jumped her, bending her arm and twisting her wrist that held the weapon. She yelped and dropped the knife. He immediately spun her around, locking her in an inescapable hug.

“Babe, you need to calm the fuck down,” he growled in her ear, giving her a firm shake. He looked up momentarily at Nate and Sam. Sam had picked up the letter opener. Why didn’t he have any sedatives in the house?

She didn’t fight him, but she was shuddering violently. It took a few more minutes for her tremors to subside. Finally, she whispered, “I’m calm now. You can let me go.”

His arms only clenched further, afraid she could still hurt herself.

“Travis, really, I’m okay. I just lost it for a moment.”

“Sorry. Not trusting you right now, sunshine,” he told her. “Now, you’re going to tell me exactly what freaked you out.”

Travis sat on his chair, dragging Caitlin on his lap. He didn’t like this development in her psyche. Threatening to kill herself—what the fuck? Now he had to think about protecting her from herself, too?

As if reading his thoughts, she said, “I wasn’t going to kill myself. I’m not suicidal. I was bluffing.”

“Well, excuse me if I don’t take it that way, Cat,” Travis snapped. “You just shaved fifty years off my life, damn it.”

“I said I was sorry.”

The other two men looked relieved.
 

“Why did you kill your laptop, Caitlin?” Nate asked, sagging into the chair in front of the desk.

“I figured out Hephaestus.”

“Fuck. What is it?”

“Hephaestus is the file that holds all the technical data—”

“Of what?”

“Seven tons of high-grade weaponized plutonium.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The three men were stunned speechless.

Good. Glad she didn’t overreact. Maybe the letter knife was overkill, but she really freaked out. The second she saw the look of horror on Travis’s face, she regretted what she did and forced herself to get it together.

Nate was on his phone searching for information. “Damn. The going rate is four thousand dollars per fucking gram. We’re talking about—” he crunched some numbers and gave a low whistle. He showed them his calculations. “Twenty-five billion dollars, give or take.”

Caitlin, who was still sitting on Travis’s lap, felt him turn rock solid.

“It’s reasonable to conclude that the stash is somewhere in the Carpathian mountain range, and the second file contains its exact coordinates.” Travis sighed. “However, twenty-five billion dollars is currently smashed into pieces on my damned floor.”

She shot out from Travis’s grasp. “Do you really think I’m giving them the coordinates?”

“I’m saying you shouldn’t have been so impulsive in destroying your laptop.”

“Oh, now, because it’s more money than you can ever imagine you’re taking the side of the people who want to use me?”

“Stop twisting my words,” Travis rose from his chair and towered over her. “We’re not sure of
their
motives. They may be trying to prevent the plutonium from falling into the wrong hands.”

She glared up at him, not backing down. “Or this could be a shady side of the agency. I’m not naive Travis. The CIA likes to manipulate the power landscape of organized crime and political conflicts to further their objectives.”

“You shouldn’t let what happened to your team cloud your judgment.”

“Excuse me, it didn’t happen to you!” Caitlin yelled into his face. “Sometimes I’m thankful I don’t remember. Because it would kill me to know that some of my friends died and I lived.”

“Don’t you dare say it happened only to you, Caitlin.” Travis gritted his teeth. “I thought you died, remember? Can you imagine how I felt when I came back from a fucking mission, having already lost one of my men, only to be informed that my wife was dead?” His eyes turned bleak. “It fucking broke me, Cat. My life shattered that day. I don’t think I’ve pieced myself back together yet. So don’t fucking tell me it didn’t happen to me, because I lived that nightmare.”

The indignant righteousness that was fueling her resistance slowly dissipated and was replaced by the urge to wrap her arms around him. She took a deep breath, reached out, and linked her fingers with his, giving him a tug to draw him closer.
 

His eyes flared with an unnamed emotion. His arms came around her as he buried his face in the curve of her neck, burrowing his nose as though he was inhaling her, absorbing all that was her.
 

Moments passed as they just stood there, until Nate cleared his throat, reminding them that they were not alone.

“So what’s the plan?” His friend asked.

*****

Travis leaned on the doorframe to his bedroom, sipping his Scotch as he stared at his wife, fast asleep on his bed. The night had been draining. He’d been tempted to turn Caitlin over his knee and blister the daylights out of her for even thinking of holding that letter knife to her throat. Even if she were bluffing, it was no small matter. And she pulled it on him—her husband, damn it.

He’d also seen the distrust in her eyes. That hurt him the most, but he understood her. The impact of seeing all that information probably transported her back to her days on the run. She had not met with Dr. Lester in a while. When all this shit was over, she probably needed to see her again.

The laptop was a complete loss. Apparently, when Caitlin flung it on the floor, she stomped on it as well. They could probably reload the files from the backup drive, but some software was proprietary to the CIA and compatibility might be an issue. However, he wouldn’t be surprised if the contents hadn’t been ghosted over spyware.

He took another sip of his drink. The confrontation also dredged up an unwitting flashback of the day he was told of her death three years before. Just when he thought he’d pieced himself back together, those memories chipped away at him all over again.
 

Travis made his way back to the kitchen bar to pour himself another finger of Scotch. Nate had left and returned with a change of clothes. He was staying the night. Sam had retired to bed after making sure all the CCTV cameras and alarms passed testing. There was a possibility with the loss of the laptop that whoever was after Caitlin would come for her.
 

Damn it, there was another reason Travis wished she hadn’t destroyed the laptop. Ever since they returned from Iron Ridge, Travis had a distinct feeling in his gut that something really bad was about to happen. He didn’t share this with anyone, because he didn’t want to raise any undue concern. If it wasn’t the files, then what was it?

He heard his phone vibrate loudly on the granite countertop. He picked it up to check caller ID.

Porter.

“Admiral.”

“Blake. We need to talk.”

*****

It was late evening of the following day when Travis finally made it to his meeting with Ben Porter. Caitlin had argued with him all day, adamant that she wasn’t going to work further on the files. Her exact words were, “Porter can go fuck himself.”

Travis had reasoned with her to have him at least hear Porter out. Nate, thankfully, was behind him on this, which frustrated Caitlin more. Sam, the only other person who was privy to the information, was quiet, but Travis knew he was siding with Caitlin. His new recruit had not served in the military. Keeping the peace was not a simple choice. It was not black and white, good or bad. In most cases, it was about choosing the lesser evil.
 

He wasn’t going blindly into this. Seven tons of weaponized plutonium was a disaster waiting to happen. At the hands of terrorists, it could mean thousands of lives lost, but Porter had to convince him that there was no other hidden agenda.

He parked his Escalade, exited the SUV, and mounted the steps to Porter’s colonial brick home. A man dressed in cargos and a black tee with a comm device and wire attached to his ear opened the door before Travis even hit the bell.

“The Admiral is waiting for you in his study,” the man said. “It’s—”

“I know where it is,” Travis replied. He had been to Porter’s home countless times for dinner and late-night drinks, and it always had a comfortable feel. Not so tonight. The air was charged with tension.
 

Travis walked the narrow hallway lined with landscape paintings and colonial furniture. A musty smell invaded his nostrils. He wasn’t a big fan of antique furnishings, but he was used to them because many of his business associates were collectors. At this moment, the smell was oddly suffocating.

The light filtering through in the slightly open door to Porter’s study illuminated a triangular section in the otherwise darkened corridors. He spied the admiral puffing his pipe, his leather swivel chair turned toward the window. He was deep in thought.

Travis rapped on the door to announce his arrival before stepping in. The admiral’s chair squeaked as he turned. He snuffed his pipe and motioned Travis in. “Blake.”

“Admiral.”

“Have a seat.”

After settling in a chair, Travis waited for the admiral to speak.
 

“How’s Caitlin?”

“Honestly? She’s not too happy with you.”

“We weren’t going to bother her. All she had to do was decrypt the files.”

“Are you admitting that you’ve installed spyware on her laptop?”

“It’s useless to deny now, right? I called the instant the laptop was destroyed.” Porter sat back in his chair, spearing Travis with a beady look. “Who else knows about Hephaestus, Travis?”

“Sorry, Admiral, I’m not giving you ammunition to put a hit on anyone.”

“Jesus Christ, Blake, you make me sound like the fucking mafia,” the admiral said with no small amount of exasperation. “Well, whoever does—I figure either Shephard or Reece knows—they have the good sense to keep their mouth shut or good men will die. We’re at a crucial point of a three-year op.”

“So enlighten me, Admiral. Give me something to convince Caitlin that seven tons of weaponized plutonium will go a long way in promoting fucking world peace.”

“What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room,” the admiral said carefully.

“I’ll have to tell Cat,” Travis said, a bit incredulous.

“Of course.” Porter waved his hand as if it was a given. “We’re trying to come out of this with most of the money in our hands—”

“You’re selling the plutonium? Since when did the CIA participate in black market nukes?”

Porter just stared at him with a look that made Travis shut up.

“We’re not letting go of the plutonium. We’re setting up the Zorin Bratva to take the fall. Grigori Zorin has buyers from North Korea, Russia and Iran already salivating for this high-grade nuclear material. We plan to take their money, and take them down as well.”

“That’s a lofty goal, Admiral,” Travis said dubiously.

“If planned strategically, the payoff is worth it.”

“So was taking in the gullible Travis Blake part of your grand master plan?” Travis hated that he let some bitterness tinge his tone. The admiral had no loyalties.
 

“No. I saw great potential in you, Blake.”

Travis gave a short bark of mirthless laughter. “I don’t need you to patronize me, Admiral. If you can assure me you’re certain this will take down that piece of shit, Grigori Zorin, and his entire Bratva, I’ll convince Caitlin to give you what you need.”