Authors: Megan Mitcham
F
ractured sunlight poured
in through the window as the sun found its way to the horizon. How in the hell had a street kid from London found his way into the arms of a woman who loved him? She’d said it only once and he believed her. She was pure and fierce and good. Well, not quite so pure now.
Greer’s head lay against his chest. Gentle breaths escaped from her slightly open mouth, blowing a damp clump of blonde hair sandwiched between them. Long lashes rested on her cheeks. Her arm and leg crossed his body not just draped, but clinging to him even in sleep, holding him close…as though she knew.
A lump formed in Zeke’s throat. He kissed the top of her head for the hundredth time. Terror, stark and daunting, reached inside his chest and played table tennis with his heart.
He didn’t sleep around, but when he enjoyed the company of a woman he always used protection. Without fail. It had been within arm’s reach two hours ago when he’d known they’d both reached the boundaries of their control. He’d made the conscious decision not to protect her. Now…he hated himself for it. Yet, at the same time, the vision of Greer cuddling a dark haired, fat cheeked, blue eyed babe to her breast—their baby—brought the biggest dopey grin to his face.
Never had he wanted a partner. The thought of kids had not once grazed his scalp, but with Greer he wanted it all.
Cue the terror.
Zeke was many things. A family man didn’t hit the list, not even a thousand feet down. His chest cramped at the ugly realization.
He hugged Greer to his chest one more time, placed a kiss on her corn-silk hair, and then pried her limbs from his body. After standing and cursing himself once more, he covered her with the blanket. When she snuggled in and her breathing evened he moved back to the living area.
In the corner of the kitchen he found the hollow board with a few quick taps. It slipped up without a sound. In the shallow hole a white handkerchief lay wrapped in a neat rectangle just the way he’d left it when setting up this place nearly two years ago. Zeke plucked the cloth from the hole and unwound it. He stared at the small black cell phone for a long minute. His gaze lifted to the closed bedroom door.
No turning back now.
A series of buttons activated the device and dialed the only programmed number. Into the silent line he said, “Sierra. Hotel. Romeo. Oscar. Uniform. Delta. Two. Zero. One. One.”
After a series of beeps an operator answered. “Voice confirmation complete. Lieutenant Slaughter, how may I direct your call?”
“OIA, Commander Hawk.”
Forty seconds passed. Not unusual for the number of safeguards in place. Salma Hawk, the director of Oversight and Internal Affairs—the clandestine division of the most covert operations group in the world—always liked to throw in a few added stockades before answering. They needed those fail-safes today. Zeke's jaw twitched.
A hard feminine voice cut onto the line. “If you try and die on me again, I’ll kill you myself and save the worry.”
“Aw. You’re getting soft in your old age.”
The woman who’d recruited him into the secret division of the Base Branch, who’d saved him from himself when he’d taken off into the dark after killing his father, chuckled. “Five years doing what I do and, hell yeah, I’m feeling old age.”
“You’re the oldest thirty-three-year-old I know, and I’m about to make you feel seventy.”
“I’ve never known you to fail a mission. Finally missed your man, huh?”
“Not quite.”
“So you found the source?”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to like it.”
T
he
thump
,
thump
,
thump
of a propeller jerked Greer from a deep sleep. Bright, temporarily blinding morning light spilled in through the unshaded windows. Twice during the night, he’d woken her. The desperation she remembered in his ardent thrusts drove a spear of dread straight to her heart. Her arms patted the bed in search of Z.
Her fingers found only cold covers. Greer shot from the bed and ran naked through the small maze. Sticky evidence of their lovemaking clung to her thighs. They hadn’t used protection. She hadn’t protected herself against Z, not her heart or her body. No way would she regret the cognizant decisions.
Not even as hollowness filled the four walls that hours ago had teemed with action and emotion. The house was empty. Suddenly, so was Greer.
She tossed back the rug and searched frantically for the tool to open the hatch. A stack of her clothes, a knife, two pistols, and a rifle lay in neat order on the table where Z’s bag had been. He was gone.
Again the whir of a HELO’s blade drew her attention. She grabbed Z’s rumpled T-shirt from the floor and threw herself at the front door. Headed toward the far clearing on the rim of an oak forest, Z stalked the distance, his wide frame covered in a vest and full tactical gear. Greer wrenched the handle, yanked the door open, and screamed his name.
Maybe it was his uncanny senses that turned his head. Maybe it was the utter despair in her voice. Maybe he just happened to look above the cabin, searching out the arriving bird. Uncaring of the reason, she seized the opportunity to snare his attention; Greer used the T-shirt as a flag. While her arm arched wide, her heart tried desperately to break free from her chest. She let the balled weight of the shirt swing through the air while she rushed down the steps and the crest of the long sloping hill.
He pivoted and broke into a dead sprint before the soles of her feet hit the harsh mixture of dirt, rock, and grass. The craggy ground bit into her heels, but she didn’t stop. If anything, she sped with the increasing whop of blades.
They covered the uneven thirty yards in a flash, meeting at the first line of trees separating the yard from the pasture. Sadness, confusion, and rage clogged her throat. Just as well. Z pulled her against his chest so quickly it forced the little bit of air left in her lungs out. He whirled with her in his arms and shoved her back against the coarse bark of a large oak. His grip encircled her wrists and he pulled her arms from around his middle. Before her eyes, he seemed to grow a foot taller and wider.
A Blackhawk filled to the open hatch with weapons and soldiers screamed overhead. Z held her still, hiding her from view.
When the Hawk passed them Z’s gruffness molted. His damp forehead met hers. “What the fuck, Greer.” He panted the words. She didn't so much hear as see them on his pale lips.
“What’s going on?” she hollered.
“I have to go.”
“I can see that.” Her arms thrashed, but his grip contained the gesture. “Why are you leaving me here? I can help.”
His jaw screwed tight.
“We’re back to that? After…everything…”
Hard lips stole the words out of her mouth. His kiss was sorrowful and oh so sweet. And over too quickly.
“You’re not coming back.” She choked the words so softly he may not have heard them.
“Listen to me, Greer. You have to stay here, stay hidden. When it’s safe a car will come for you.”
His hands slipped from her wrists. When she tried to reach for him a tempest glare stayed her. He turned, snaked through the line of trees to the edge of the clearing, and then broke the tree line.
The tendons in her legs turned to rubber. Greer gripped the tree to keep from crashing to the ground. She turned slowly, trying to stay hidden as he’d asked and trying not to fall. Too late. Like a fool she’d fallen in love with Zeke Slaughter, international man of mystery.
Z ran toward the Blackhawk. When he neared, the soldiers parted for a woman with a long, slicked-back pony tail and more military decor than Greer had ever seen. She extended a sturdy hand to Z. He used it to leap into the belly. The moment his feet hit metal the landing skids lifted. He never looked back.
F
or so long he
’d straddled the fence between good and evil. Sitting in the midst of eight Base Branch operatives he’d never met Zeke felt like a pimple on a rhino’s ass. The feeling didn’t have long to root. Hawk shoved a thick stack of maps, city grids, and schematics at his belly. He flipped through the highlighted routes they’d planned during the night, checking alternate courses, and then ranking the order of probability. They had a tight window, but if anyone could do it, Hawk and her team could.
“Checks clean.” He returned the laminated papers.
“Did you have any doubts?” His superior snatched them back and winked.
“Only about two a second,” he hollered in the wind tunnel created by the two open doors and a change of direction.
“You had to make a splash on reentry, didn’t you?” Salma Hawk peeled the rank patch off her shoulder and stuck it to the fabric covered wall.
“If there was another way…”
“But there’s not.” She shrugged. “Let’s see if I can earn my keep.” She gave the team captain a hand signal; Hawk had called him Prosper over the phone. Prosper in turn signaled the men’s legs inside, and then closed the doors. Her fist balled and rapped twice on the ceiling. The men turned in a short burst of movement. Hawk looked over her shoulder. “Welcome home.”
“Good to be back.”
Hawk nodded, and then addressed each of her men with a measuring gaze.
“You’ve all been with me a while, but none longer and more entrenched in the filth of our jobs than Lieutenant Slaughter.” Hawk hiked a finger in his direction. Ten pairs of eyes landed on him with the weight of a freight train. He stared back, unmoving, but his insides crawled, reminding him why he worked under a shroud.
“Each of you were handpicked to protect this organization and the balance it works tirelessly to maintain. I’ve trained you. I’ve pushed you as far as you could go, and then demanded you steel yourself, gore the ground, and push harder. Today, I’ll take you to the limit of even my own mettle, and I ask you to stand with me as I dig in and do the unthinkable for the greater good.”
The men jarred fists against each other's backs. Oorah’s and hoorah’s punctuated their anticipation.
“I like your enthusiasm, but let me finish, and then see how anxious you are to follow me.” Hawk’s shoulders straightened a degree more. The men leaned forward, their gazes intent on their leader.
“Thanks to Lieutenant Slaughter’s undercover efforts, we know the location of the Stas's US strongholds and that US Elite is in violation of over a dozen policies. Base Branch regular teams one through five are moving into position for a simultaneous strike on both. Our target is the president of the United States.”
To their credit none of the agents gasped. They each gripped their pre-battle calm, if not a little tighter than necessary.
“I have verified proof that Grieves Stockton, the President of the United States has used US Elite forces for his own profit, to forge alliances not sanctioned by the citizens of this great country and in stark opposition to its ideals, to murder, and intimidate. The evidence and the crimes are overwhelming. Something must be done today, and we will do it.”
Hawk pointed to the hatch. “If anyone on this plane can’t move against the commander in chief…speak now and I’ll drop you on our way. I might give you a parachute. I might not.”
A smile threatened Zeke’s stony demeanor.
She gave them ten whole seconds to dive. No one moved. “Trust comes into play here, but trust me when I say this man is one of the worst terrorists our soil has ever seen. I have the backing of the heads of military, but the FBI, CIA, and the legislative bodies of this great country had been kept out of the loop for security purposes. If the mission fails we will be viewed as terrorists ourselves and be dealt with accordingly.”
Prosper eyed each of the men, let his gaze rest on Zeke for a long second, and then turned to Hawk. “Ma’am, I didn’t vote for him anyway. Let’s impeach his ass.”
“
H
ope
he’s not too attached.” Greer tossed a piece of the BMW’s steering column onto the gravel next to the Philips head screwdriver—the only tool, besides a palm sized Swiss Army knockoff, she’d found after ripping the cabin apart in search of the key for the damn car. Turned out Germans used triple square fasteners.
He couldn’t be that attached. He’d left the doors unlocked. Smashing a window might have done her nerves some good. She braced one palm on the door, the other on the roof, and rammed the toe of her boot into the stubborn plastic. A crack allied her irritation…a little. Another blow rewarded her with a hint of bound wires ranging the colors of the rainbow. Hot-wiring an old Jeep in the sands of the Helmand River Valley in Afghanistan couldn’t be any harder than this sleek car on a quiet plot of home soil, could it?
One way to know.
The plastic bit into her fingertips. Her teeth gritted and muscles bunched. He’d left a brisk note in the pile of clothes.
“Stay put, someone you don’t know will eventually be by to pick you up,” she told the sporty sedan. “Like I’m a package to be delivered or a…car.” The plastic broke free under her strain and indignation. “Sorry to break it to you, pretty, but he’s not attached. Not at all.”
Hot tears slid down her face. If he was going to leave, why relent and finally screw her? Where the hell was he going anyway? And if she ever got this fancy thing with all its fail-safes started, where the hell would she go? Her dad was dead. She didn’t have an apartment. No real friends to speak of. The only family she had left were the very ones who’d taken everything from her.
An idea lit like a spark on a drought ridden savannah. Z couldn’t get close to the president. She could.
Greer kicked through the blur of emotion. She kicked with renewed purpose. The large chunk gave way, revealing fuses, bound cables, and her ticket to retribution. Small rocks and pebbled dirt dug into her knees. Damn the man, but he hadn’t left her a clean pair of pants. Only a single pair of too-short khaki shorts, a new clingy tee—into which she’d managed to sweat three dark green lines—socks, and lacy panties.
“He doesn’t need a bra. So, why leave me a clean one?”
She tugged at the stiff material around her middle with one hand and yanked out a tightly banded mass of wires. When the adjustments did little to relieve her discomfort her fingers fished inside the front pocket for the knife. The dull blade nicked the cinched zip-ties more than actually cut it.
“Only twenty more to go.”
The crunch of tires at the end of the winding drive pricked her attention on number six. They couldn’t be in the clear yet. It hadn’t been more than an hour and a half since Z left. She hadn’t wasted that long weeping in a huddled ball before ripping the cabin to shreds, finding nothing, and showering while she’d formulated her plan. Time moved faster when seduced by joy. It moved slower when hounded by sorrow. When devastated…it stopped altogether.
There wasn’t a clock in the cabin. The car’s digital readout only displayed with a freaking key. Her sun positioning method of time keeping wasn’t all that accurate. So, maybe it had been longer than she realized.
Time or not, Greer closed the knife, stuffed it into her pocket, tossed the pile she’d made onto the floorboard, and slammed the door shut. As casually as she could muster, she propped herself against the car. She gulped and prepared to do some fancy talking. No way was she going with whomever he’d sent to be shuttled to another hidden locale and wait for who knew what.
A heavily tinted town car wound its way to a stop mere feet from the car she intended to drive off this country road. The door opened and a wall of a man hoisted himself from the seat. His wavy mass of white hair nipped the set of her jaw.
“Hello, Ms. Britton.” Four meaty fingers hitched the front of his belt. He closed the door so hard the car shimmied.
The first wave of apprehension snuck up Greer’s shoulder blades.
White teeth, too white to be natural, peeked from behind a wide smile. “I hoped I’d catch you here.”
Had Z told him to hurry because she might try to leave?
He rounded the hood and ambled toward her. Despite his slow pace and the deep lines and hair color showing his age, Greer gained a sense that this man had been lethal in his day, and likely could be still.
“Who are you?”
“Forgive me for not introducing myself. I feel like I already know you.” He stopped roughly four feet away. “I’m Xavier.”
No last name. No reference tags. “Just Xavier?”
“Forgive me again.” He extended his left hand. “Xavier Grisha Filipov, senior.”
Greer’s gaze sought the man’s right hand, even as she reached for the one he offered. A gasp wedged inside her throat. Uneven, discolored tissue covered the knuckles where Xavier’s first three fingers should have been. Her gaze flew to the incomplete hand clutching hers. Something had taken his pinkie. A gnarled scar ran up the top of his hand and the bottom too. The raised line pressed against her fingers. She caught herself gawking like a fool.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
He shook her hand and released it with an easy smile. “Do not be. I am not ashamed of my appearance.”
The phrasing he used set up another red flag. She’d thought she heard a suppressed accent. His name shrieked Russian. He canted his head as though waiting for her to speak
“You shouldn’t be,” she stammered.
But no, his blue gaze roamed her legs. His smile turned crooked. “I worked with explosives for many, many years. Even the most careful man can make a mistake.” The smile dipped past sane. “I venture we all have battle scars. Some of us wear them on the outside, others only on the inside.”