Kill Shot (10 page)

Gabe upended the backpack he carried on the
bed while Grace checked the room over. He stuffed extra magazines
in the pockets of his cargo pants and tossed a couple to Grace so
she could do the same. He put a backup piece in his ankle holster—a
9mm Ruger—and a seven-inch blade in a sheath that fit around his
thigh. His double shoulder holster had two Sig Sauer SP2022s fully
loaded and ready to go. He wrapped a circle of wire loosely around
his hand and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

Grace was already outfitted with her own
weapons and waiting for him in the bathroom. He turned on the
shower and she turned on the sink. He drew her into his arms in an
easy embrace and ignored the stiffening of her body.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered against his
neck.

He breathed in the scent of her hair and
couldn’t help his body’s reaction. The adrenaline running through
his veins only intensified it. “I’ve got a bad feeling. Something
seemed off with Kareem. I want to go now and flush out Tussad.”

“Do you know how to get to him?”

“Kareem said he’s staying with his sister,
but I don’t believe it. I had Ethan check CIA records before we
left, and it shows Tussad has a brother-in-law and a cousin who own
property in Abadan. The brother-in-law has a wife and five children
under one roof, so it isn’t likely he’d be staying there. The
cousin has been missing for the last eight months, but someone is
still paying his bills. We’ll start there and hope we get
lucky.”

“How far? Will we need the Jeep?”

“It’s less than a mile down the road. We can
run it.”

She nodded and tried to pull out of his
grasp, but he didn’t let her go. She looked up at him with wary
eyes, and the feel of her against him was so right that he couldn’t
do anything but kiss her.

“For luck,” he said, and lowered his mouth
to hers.

He kissed her at each corner of her mouth
first before tasting her full bottom lip with the tip of his
tongue. Her breath hitched, and her mouth opened, and Gabe couldn’t
resist the temptation. Her lips were soft and moist, and he groaned
as her tongue gently rubbed against his own. This wasn’t the
frantic mating of mouths from the night before. This was
remembering. And savoring.

Gabe pulled away slowly, pleased to see the
dazed look in her eyes. He leaned around her and reached to turn
off the faucet, but his body pressed more into hers and she let out
a small whimper. He wanted to whimper himself as she pressed back
against him, but he held back from tempting himself even more.

She inhaled an unsteady breath before
ducking under his arm to turn the shower off, and Gabe felt the
loss of her warmth immediately. He went to the window and pushed
back the heavy curtains that insulated the room against the hot
afternoon sun and muttered a curse.

“What?” Grace whispered.

Gabe pointed to the window and the iron bars
that covered it. They had no choice but to go out the front. He
dropped the curtain and went to the door of their room to listen
for movement in the hallway. His weapon was in his hand and he eyed
Grace as she moved into an automatic position to cover his back. He
unscrewed the doorknob so it fell off in his hand, and the door
opened soundlessly. He caught the doorknob on the outside quickly
before it fell to the wooden floor.

The hallway was deserted, and he moved like
a ghost through the house and out the front door, Grace shadowing
his every move.

“Do you think the bars are to keep us in or
others out?” Grace asked as they took cover behind the house next
door.

“I don’t know, but we’ll assume the worst.”
Gabe pulled out his GPS and looked at their position. He pointed to
the west side of town and said, “We’ll take cover every twenty feet
just to be safe. If Tussad is there, we’ll do whatever necessary to
flush him out.”

“And if he isn’t?” Grace asked.

“Then we’ll gather more intel and try again.
I won’t go back on my word, Grace.”

She nodded, and he closed his eyes, letting
the adrenaline rush through his body, and he opened his senses. The
night was quiet, but that was to be expected of a town so sparsely
populated. The air was cool, and it wouldn’t be long before the
excitement of the chase stopped warming their bodies and they were
left shivering in the desert night.

They ran in short, silent sprints. The
farther they ran, the less evidence there was of the well-kept,
prosperous city of Abadan. This part of the city had been abandoned
after the bombings. Homes and buildings were no more than ruins.
Cars lay on their sides or crushed under large slabs of rock. A
mosque was completely intact from the front, but as they ran around
the side they saw the entire middle had been torn apart. And just
as some of the buildings were completely destroyed and had no hope
of repair, there were others that stood perfectly intact.

This was the part of the city people had
decided to forget. They’d taken what was left of their belongings
and moved to the other side, where they could pick up their lives
and move on. It was the perfect place for someone like Tussad to
lie low for a few days.

The GPS vibrated in Gabe’s pocket, and he
signaled to Grace to take the opposite side of the small white rock
house. It was no more than a shack really. Barely standing a few
inches over six feet, the roof was made of rushes tied together and
packed with mud to keep out dust or rain. The hum of electricity
was nonexistent. There was nothing anywhere to indicate any kind of
life inhabited the premises.

Gabe signaled with his hands again to Grace,
and she nodded with understanding. They’d go around opposite sides
and meet at the back of the structure.

“There’s no one here,” she said
disappointedly as they came back together.

“No,” Gabe agreed. There were chinks missing
in the mortar, and it hadn’t been difficult to peek in and see no
one was hiding inside. It was hardly more than one large open room.
“Let’s go inside and check it out.”

He pulled the powerful flashlight from one
of his pants pockets and waited until they were inside before
turning on the light. Even then, he left it pointed at the ground
so the beam couldn’t be seen from the outside.

“Nothing but cobwebs,” he said, moving his
light around the room.

The choked scream had him whirling around
and searching for the threat with his weapon and the flashlight
aimed and ready. When the beam hit Grace, he watched with complete
surprise and horror as a woman who had a reputation for never
losing her cool in a bad situation drained of all color and
collapsed in a dead faint on the dirt floor.

He ran as fast as he could, but he couldn’t
make it to her in time to catch her. He dropped the flashlight, but
held tight to his weapon as he felt for the pulse in her neck. It
was fast and thready, and her color wasn’t good. He felt up and
down her limbs to make sure nothing was broken, but she was
physically fine. He didn’t know about mentally.

Gabe grabbed the flashlight and stood
slowly, moving it in a sweeping arc on the side of the room Grace
had been on. The light reflected off something on the table, and he
moved closer so he could see.

His blood ran cold, and a fury he thought
he’d buried came rushing to the surface as he looked at the
scattered photographs on the table. They were all of him and Grace
and Maddie. Taken just days before their lives had been
destroyed.

His eyes rested on the largest
photograph—one of his daughter’s lifeless eyes as she bled in
Grace’s arms—and he promised himself that Tussad would die a
terrible, painful death.

London

“I’ve got him,” Ethan said, a big grin on
his face. “Dr. Allen Wilbur Standridge. His house was purchased by
The Darwin Corporation, which has no owner or CEO as far as I can
tell. But the dumbass loves to order online, and he uses his real
name every time, though the credit card he uses also trace back to
Darwin.”

“Arrogance,” Jack said. “He’s got someone
protecting him. What else have you got on him?”

“Other than he gets his groceries delivered
twice weekly and all the porn he buys has a distinct BDSM feel, not
much of anything. He stays to himself. Doesn’t associate with
anyone by the look of things.”

“Where is he?”

“Watch screen one.” Ethan hit a few keys on
his keyboard, and information filled up on one of the wall-sized
screens he had set up in his apartment. “He’s got a house in Boston
in the Back Bay area, but most of his phone and computer records
trace to a building in Cambridge. Probably a lab of some type from
what I can tell from satellite imaging.”

“Who owns the building?” Jack asked.

“No clue. The paper trail is buried deeper
than Jimmy Hoffa, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Good work, kid. I’ll let Gabe know.”

“Where the hell did he and Grace take off
to?” Ethan asked. “One minute I’m messing with the museum
schematics and the next Gabe has me by the balls, demanding I look
up a bunch of information on some guy I’ve never heard of. We’re
kind of in the middle of something important here. You’d think
they’d want to stick around.”

“Relax, kid. You know Gabe’s the kind of guy
who always has a bunch of different irons in the fire. They should
both be finished up with their side mission and be headed to Boston
within a day or so. Don’t worry about Gabe and Grace. They know
what they’re doing.”

“Which is apparently each other from what I
can tell. Don’t you think it’s a bad idea for agents to get
involved with each other?”

Before Ethan could blink, Jack had his chair
turned around so they faced each other. Jack didn’t look happy.

“Son, you’re going to want to watch making
stupid assumptions before Gabe gets wind of it. I can count on one
finger the number of people who’ve poked into Gabe’s business and
lived to tell the tale.”

Jack pushed away and grabbed his windbreaker
from the back of a chair. He pulled it on so it covered his gun.
“Text me if you hear from Logan. I want to know what he’s found
out.”

“He’ll probably call you directly anyway. I
seem to be somewhat superfluous in this organization.”

“That’s the spirit, kid. Always look on the
bright side.”

“Wait, where are you going?” Ethan asked.
“How come I’m always the one who has to stay and do all the
work?”

“Where I’m going is no place for kids like
you. We’ll have the birds and the bees talk once you’re a little
older.”

“Dammit, Jack, can you ever be serious?”
Ethan asked.

“Where the hell is the fun in that? Life’s
too short to be serious.” He saluted on his way out the door.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Iran

“Come on, baby, snap out of it,” Gabe said,
holding her in his arms and shaking her gently. “We’ve got to get
out of here.”

He shook her again, and Grace’s eyes snapped
open. They were wild and unfocused, and she began struggling
against him, fighting to get free of whatever nightmare she was
trapped in. Tears streamed down her face, and Gabe’s heart
shattered at her pain. She opened her mouth to scream, and he
clamped his hand across it to muffle the sound. He winced as she
bit down and broke the skin.

What the hell had she been living with the
last two years? Guilt ate at him because he knew whatever she’d
gone through, she’d gone through it alone. It didn’t matter that
the isolation was her choice. He should have been there for
her.

“Grace, snap out of it!” He slapped her
lightly across the cheek twice before her eyes started to clear and
she focused in on his face.

“What happened? Where are we?”

“I need you to pull it together. I don’t
want to have to carry you out of Iran. We’ll both end up dead.”

He could tell his no-nonsense approach was
starting to sink in, and she was beginning to think like an agent
again. She pushed out of his arms, dried her face with her sleeve,
and wiped her damp palms on her pants.

“I apologize,” she said stiffly. “You didn’t
follow SOP. You should have left me.”

He didn’t bother to argue with her. Instead,
he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the darkened hut. “We
need to get to the Jeep and get back across the border. Tussad was
obviously expecting us. I don’t want to wait around for an
ambush.”

They sprinted back to Kareem’s, not taking
as much time for cover, and when they finally reached the big white
house, they approached cautiously. Every light was on, and the
front door was left wide open.

“Looks like business was harder on Kareem
than he let on. Tussad must have lined his pockets well.”

“What do you want to do?” Grace had pulled
herself together with remarkable, and worrying, speed. She was cold
to the touch, and her pale face showed no signs of anything other
than rigid determination.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Gabe let go of her hand and checked out the
perimeter of the house before going through the front door and
checking out the interior. He slipped back out and headed towards
the Jeep. He put it in neutral and pushed it to the back of the
house, out of the direct sight of anyone coming down the street. He
ran back around to the opposite side and found Grace exactly where
he’d left her.

“It’s deserted. Kareem and his family are
gone.”

“If this was even his house to begin with,”
Grace said.

“Let’s get locked and loaded inside. I have
a feeling we’re going to need all of our resources. If Kareem has
already reported back to Tussad, then we probably only have a few
minutes to get a head start.”

Gabe went to the Jeep and took the big tarp
off the back end while Grace kept watch. He hefted the large black
trunk, and Grace followed him inside. She bolted the front door
behind them while he went to secure the back of the house.