Stolen Vengeance: Slye Temp book 6 (6 page)

Valene steadied her breathing and told Smith, “I’ll find your artifact and return it as quickly as I can. I won’t promise five days–”

He pulled the tablet back and began packing up. “Then we have nothing else to discuss, but I will hold you to the nondisclosure agreement.”

Crap. “What I meant to say was that I would not promise five days unless the thief absolutely contacts someone to sell the scroll and unless he’s looking for the kind of buyer who can actually afford something of that level.”

“The list of buyers will be in single digits.”

“Correct,” Valene said. “In fact, it’s going to take someone who is a multi-billionaire, and even then he or she will have to be convinced this scroll is real. That being the case, if your thief has a contact here who puts word out in the underground market, I’ll know who he contacts. But to cover all those networks quickly and quietly, I’ll need an additional forty thousand up front.”

Smith tapped his fingers for several very long seconds, then his jaw hardened. “I find myself in a spot that is unusual, but this absolutely must happen. Agreed. However, if you do not deliver the scroll by my deadline and I find out it was sold in the US during that time, you will return all fifty thousand dollars.”

That triggered her palms to start sweating. She sat back and dropped her hands out of sight where she clamped her thighs to dry them off. “Agreed.”

“Very well.” He tapped his tablet to bring up a document, typed quickly, then signed it and turned the tablet to Valene.

She took her time reading it and once she was satisfied she’d covered her butt the best she could, she signed with the stylus. He locked the file and sent a copy to her before turning the tablet around, tapping keys once more, then closing it inside a leather cover.

He stood, dropping a hefty tip for two glasses of water.

Guess our meeting is over.

She followed him out into the late-day sun warming the sidewalk, and shielded her eyes to look up at him. “What number do I use to reach you once I have the scroll?”

“If you need to reach me, contact Charlie, but I’ll know when you have something and I’ll find you.”

She wanted one more thing clear. “I’ll begin work as soon as I receive the fifty thousand dollar deposit.”  Big lie. She’d be on the phone to everyone who might be of help the minute she walked away.

“It’s already in your account.” Before she could question how he had that information, he told her. “Charlie supplied me with the account numbers. Anything else?”

“Yes. You have yet to give me the name of this scroll. Is it identified any specific way?”

“It’s called
Profezia di Orione
.” With that, Smith turned and strode off in the direction from which he’d first appeared.

Valene stared at his back in shock, as if his words had climbed out of his mouth, marched across the sidewalk, then rearranged themselves into the worse possible combination.

She stood there, trying to convince herself that
Profezia di Orione
didn’t translate into Orion’s Prophecy.

But it did.

That’s what drove the terrorists that Valene had helped stop last month. Dingo and his people had been on the trail of Orion Hunters determined to launch an attack.

Why did she suddenly feel guilty?

Because Dingo would want to know this, but she’d just agreed to tell no one.

If she were honest with herself, she knew just as much about Dingo as she knew about this Smith guy.

Very little.

The only tidbit Dingo had shared was that Orion Hunters were part of an underground organization with splinter groups all over the world. The ones his team had been after were terrorists from North Korea.

Not Italy.

She turned toward her car and started walking.

Orion’s Prophecy.

Prophecies were bandied about all the time in historical research. What was one more?

Besides, Dingo hadn’t even mentioned the Orion Hunters earlier today. If they were dangerous, wouldn’t he have thrown
that
in on top of the rest of his scare tactics?

She’d signed a confidentiality agreement. Enough said.

Time to get busy finding that scroll.

~*~

Valene Eklund had ignored his obvious alias of Smith, but that happened when someone was offered money they desperately needed.

He walked away from Eklund and the restaurant at a steady pace, confident that she would be unleashing her highly prized skills on finding the scroll. He keyed a button on his phone and lifted it to his ear just as the call went through.

Charlie Rothschild answered, “How’d it go, Smith?”

“The meeting was successful.”

“Hot damn! So Valene
did
go for it.”

“Did you have doubts?”

“Only because she’s a tough nut to crack.” 

“Yes. She even pushed me for an extra forty up front.”

Charlie laughed. “I told you she was sharp. If she wasn’t in a tight spot right now we might not have pulled this off, but she’ll find the scroll and fast. Like I told you, her dad is bad off and needs the money for a treatment plan. Nice job. You want to meet for a drink?”

And give Charlie a chance to ID him? “No. Call Hong Kong. Tell the boss Eklund is on board and is convinced I’m with the Vatican. Tell him I’ll find the scroll before any Orion Hunters do, then I’ll be in touch.”  He hung up the phone and slid into his sedan, dragging his tie loose while he sat there.

Now to put the next step into motion.

The next call was to a man known covertly as the General. He wasn’t one, even though he worked in the Pentagon.

The General’s baritone boomed on the line. “This better be secure.”

“It is. Contracts are set. Everything is in place for the first hit tomorrow.”

“Then do it and make sure there are no loose ends.”

“Don’t I always?” He thumbed the key to end the call and smiled over fattening his offshore accounts.

Chapter 7

Sabrina stepped off her company jet ahead of the team she’d brought to Los Angeles to find an assassin with three targets. Her Wednesday had started at three a.m. in Atlanta.  It was just past six in the evening LA time, and this day would very likely not end until she saw three on the clock at least one more time. She adjusted the shoulder strap on the black case that held her weapons and laptop, then headed out of the hangar she’d leased, into the balmy heat surrounding John Wayne Airport.

Nick Carrera fell into step alongside her, thumbing a message on his phone while they walked to the vehicle parking lot. “Four SUVs are waiting for us.”

“Let’s get everyone settled in and start rotating down time. There won’t be much sleep until we figure out for sure who this assassin is after.”

“Agreed.”

She could hear a crowd of footsteps and rolling wheels coming up behind them.

Nick glanced at the parking lot, looked back down at what he was thumbing then slowly lowered his phone and stared intently at the smattering of vehicles.

She took note of the way he’d gone on alert.

Four black SUVs were parked together, each windshield tagged with a paper sign that had one word and number printed.

MINE 1, MINE 2, MINE 3 and MINE 4.

Nick’s sense of humor. He’d been assigned to handle transportation on this mission. She was just glad to have him whole and walking around after the damage he’d taken on their last mission out here. The team had been ambushed and Nick had taken a round way too close to his lung.

A fifth black SUV waited three empty spaces away, all by itself with the grill facing Sabrina.  That’s what had pinged Nick’s radar.

Headlights blinked on, flashed to high beam then back to low beam, and remained illuminated in the dusty, early evening light.

Please say that isn’t for me.

Her phone dinged.

The text read:
We need to talk.

Why should she expect any part of this trip to be easy? She considered her options. Deal with this complication now or later?

Nick squinted at the lone vehicle. “Company?”

“Yes.”

“Expected?”

“No, but I know who it is. Get the team fed and to the safe house. Leave a car with the keys in it. Text me if anything comes up before I arrive. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Roger that.”  Nick turned and waited for the other team members, then started giving instructions.

She walked to the SUV that sat with its engine purring, opened the passenger door and slid onto the leather seat before turning her foul mood on Gage Laughton. “What do you want?”

He gave her a half smile that said so much more than the words other men spoke. “Cocktails?”

“No.”

“Dinner.”

“
No!”

“Worth a try.” He chuckled at yanking her chain as he backed the vehicle around to park at an angle that let them both observe the entire lot, but prevented anyone from seeing them together. He did it for her benefit and she tried to appreciate the gesture.

He wore black jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, so unlike his agency suits. His chestnut brown hair was shorter than last time, but still thick enough to run her fingers through if she lost control of her hands. That was always a possibility with this man. He didn’t pull a string of suave pickup lines out of his hat or try to dazzle a woman.

He was raw power, coiled and ready to unleash on a threat faster than the snap of a whip. His face would never be seen in a magazine, not even with the combination of distinctive hazel eyes and a square chin.

He had a man’s face. Rough and natural.

She still found him to be the hottest male she’d ever seen in–or out–of pants. She’d never been drawn to charmers, never trusted a man who handed out compliments like business cards. Gage had been demanding, critical and adversarial. The two of them should have been a worse combination than oil and water, but all that passion had combusted one night and she thought she’d found her soul mate.

That’s when she realized he
got
her.

He loved the woman she’d become.

She wasn’t cut out for a normal life and he hadn’t cared. She’d trusted him with her body and her heart.

Then it all went to hell three years ago when she dragged her bloodied team out of the UK where she’d risked her life, and the lives of the men she considered brothers, to extract a captured CIA agent. Len Rikker.

Someone in the agency had tossed her team to the wolves, but no one was about to own up, and Gage refused to hand over the names of everyone who had been privy to her mission.

Josh and Dingo would go ballistic knowing she was sitting here with Gage, and she wasn’t up for that, not when she was already pissed at Dingo.

She had no time for guilt on this trip. “What’s up, Gage? The agency having a slow week or what?”

“The agency doesn’t know I’m here,” he quipped, putting the SUV in park.

That sounded like the agency didn’t know Gage was in LA, but she’d learned to interpret Gage talk early on when he’d first become her handler.

Her translation?

The agency didn’t know Gage was
stateside
since the CIA couldn’t operate on US soil.

Or so most Americans believed.

“Did you come bearing gifts?” she asked, trying to stick with casual when her insides were knotted up. As difficult as it was to keep her distance and sleep alone at night, sitting this close to him was far worse. Her body could sense him being near and complained at the open space between them.

“Sure, I brought gifts.”  Gage reached over the console separating them and pulled out two waters that were perspiring from being in a cooler.

She took hers and muttered, “That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“That isn’t your gift.”  Gage said, “I have information for you that the agency doesn’t have. Is that worth a few minutes?”

That sent her antennae shooting up. She lowered the bottle from her lips and propped it on her lap.

Would this be the moment that he handed her the lead for finding Rikker–or whoever held Rikker’s chain?

Probably not.

She took another drink of her water, refusing to say anything more than she had to in this verbal game of chess.

Gage’s failure to hand over names connected to the UK mission had stood in the way of every effort he made to get back into her good graces.

Or in her bed.

She finally gave in first, only because she was too exhausted to walk an emotional tightrope. “I can’t keep doing this, Gage.”

“Can’t we just have a moment without arguing over
that
?”

That
being Rikker and the UK mission that stood between them, squeezing any chance of happiness out of the air.

The desire to give up the fight and climb over the console into his lap pounded her skull and her heart, but she owed a debt to the men who had stood by her when the CIA screwed her team. She was losing the battle of keeping Gage at bay until she could find answers.

She didn’t handle emotional chaos well and when it became too much she lashed out. “I can’t just forget what happened even if you can.”

“Jesus, Sabrina, how can you say that? Didn’t I give you a traffic cam shot of Rikker in DC? The agency doesn’t have that either.”

Guilt came knocking and her conscience opened the door, but she was not conceding. Not after all she and her men had gone through to be here today.

“Names.” She shoved that word at him to cut through all the crap. “I’ve been asking for names and I still don’t have them.”

He chuckled and it sounded sad. “Asking you to trust me is clearly out of the realm of possibilities, so how about a little patience while I figure things out?”

“Patience? I’m out of it. I used it up over the last three years.”

“Not my fault. You could have been here helping me find answers instead of hiding from me.”

She shouldn’t have to defend herself to anyone, but neither would she let that comment stand. “I was taking care of my people who almost died that night. Josh should have.” The fear of watching Josh barely cling to life had tortured her and Dingo. She owed Josh, Dingo, Tanner and Blade for what they went through when someone traded their lives for Rikker’s.

Rikker had never come back to the CIA–at least not as far as she knew–but only the CIA had known about that mission.

That’s what she’d been told.

She added, “Hiding from you was second to all that.” Her head pounded. She hadn’t eaten in fifteen hours and she could sleep on the hood at this point. “I can’t keep doing this, Gage. We’re on. We’re off. It’s making me crazy.”

“Then stop running from me.”

She flinched internally. “I don’t run from anyone.”

“What do you call dropping off the face of the earth without a word?” he said, power booming through his words, but not shouting. Not yet. “I hunted for you
every minute
. You could have let me know you were alive, but you were convinced that I had betrayed you,” Gage’s commanding voice never wavered until he said, “I would
never
have doubted you.”

His voice shook.

Her heart wobbled at the sound.

She hurt now to think about Gage here alone and thinking she was dead, but back then she’d been furious with everyone in the CIA who had known about her team’s mission. She’d threatened to kill any CIA agent who came near her.

The next time she’d seen Gage, she’d already set up shop in Atlanta and he’d refused to share anything about the UK op. That refusal had doubled the thick walls around her heart.

She longed to forget all the bad history and feel what they had before, but she was made of stronger mettle than that. Had to be. “I got in this car thinking you had new information. Not to argue.”

“I do have something to tell you.”  He sounded disheartened, but locked it away, always holding on to that unshakeable control.

“I’m only interested in information on one person.”

“You, of all people, know it’s never as simple as that in this business.”

She brushed loose hairs off her face, needing to move. Sitting still was not helping her frame of mind. “Whatever. Are you going to share this news or is it on a need-to-know-basis and I don’t need to know?”

He turned a thoughtful gaze on her and said, “Over this past year, your group has discovered more about the Orion Hunters than anyone I’ve been in contact with since you brought the hunters to my attention. I put two people, the only two I trust in the agency, on digging up anything they could find. They uncovered three major divisions of the hunters. The physicists your people extracted from North Korea–”

“Under orders from the State Department.”  Sabrina had owed the department for an issue one of her people created that couldn’t be avoided, and it put her in a position where she’d had to take the North Korea contract.

“Right. Those two men came from what we’ve confirmed is the largest Asian division of Orion Hunters.”

She didn’t want to talk about the hunters so she finally said, “I thought we were talking about Rikker.”

He surprised her when he said, “We are.”

“Really?”

“Have I finally got your attention?”

Feeling reprimanded, she said, “Yes.”

He shifted in his seat and leaned forward, covering the hand that she’d dropped to the console.

If she pulled it away, she’d look intimidated.

If she left it there, she risked turning her hand over to feel his fingers weave through hers.

Her heart got a cardio workout while she decided.

His voice lost the tense edge of a moment ago and he started explaining, “You think I’m intentionally holding back information, but I’m not. I’ve been uncovering information ... things that keep me up at night. You want Rikker. I get that, but I haven’t told you some things until now because I think Rikker is just a thread leading to a much bigger organization of power players pulling strings.”

“Who?”

“I’m not sure if the players are here, foreign or both. The Orion Hunters might sound like a bunch of fanatics to most people in this country–”

She cut in sarcastically, “That would be the ninety-nine percent who have no idea how close we came to the hunters poisoning a major aquifer that supplies a third of our water.”

“Right, but the trail I’ve been on is becoming harder to navigate all the time. There’s an obscene amount of money moving around in search of the five artifacts the Orion Hunters want ... and a bloody trail of bodies connected to them.”

“We’re getting off topic.”

“No, we’re not.” He kept his hand on hers. That single touch shoved her mind off track.

If she didn’t free her hand soon, she would be in danger of not taking it back. Scrambling to think, she blurted out, “Rikker. What were you going to tell me about him?”