Taking Sides (ARC Operatives Book 2) (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Nico had managed to pull his head out of his ass long enough to realize that stranding her at his apartment building wasn't the best course of action. Still, he'd been quiet on the drive over to HQ, a serious set to his features. The perma-smirk that was normally embedded on his face was gone, replaced by a stormy look of dissatisfaction. Daria had to fight to keep from apologizing, and then had to fight to keep from laying into him for making her feel guilty over something she hadn't done. There was no reason for him to ice her out, but he was doing it anyway. They pulled into the parking lot at ARC, and he left his hands on the wheel as he let out a long breath.

“Daria-” he started, but she was already undoing her seatbelt.

“Did they tell you what meeting room?” she asked briskly, not in the mood to hear an apology from him or worse some sort of
I'm sorry you feel bad, I'm not sorry for how I behaved
thing that she was so used to hearing from men whenever she had an issue with a stunt they'd pulled. Either way, the breakfast he'd made for her sat heavy in her stomach.

Focus, Daria, you love-sick idiot
, she said to herself and then opened the car door. He hadn't even turned off the engine yet.

“
Mila
, just... may I have a minute?” He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, his touch light like he didn't want to quite grab onto her. She felt her jaw tighten, her teeth clenching together. Nicolai must have noticed the flex of her muscles in her face because he instantly let go of her when he got the idea that she wasn’t interested in being held back by him.

“I don’t want to be late for this meeting, since it’s important or whatever,” Daria said, not able to look him in the face. “Can we talk after?” She heard him sigh reluctantly, but he turned the car off and got out, not willing to push her for which she was grateful.

“Sure, after the meeting,” he agreed as he met her around the back of the car. He looked so hesitant, so hang-dog, that Daria had to sigh and reach up to brush her fingers across his cheek.

“It’s fine, we’ll talk later,” she said, leaning up to press a slow, warm kiss over his lips. His hand found the back of her waist and he tugged her in against his firm chest. In an instant she was melting on him, and he’d coaxed her lips open so his tongue could dart swiftly over hers. Daria felt a low noise in the back of her throat, a muted moan and had to shove herself off him.

“We’re professionals,” she hissed, although she was more annoyed at herself than him. To her annoyance, he shot her a grin that was both evil and smug.

“Whatever you say,
Mila
,” his voice was deceptively meek and no match for the smirk on his face. He grabbed her hand before she could pull away, his fingers lacing through hers as he pulled her along after him towards ARC’s main entrance.

The cool air inside sank right into her bones and she grumbled internally when they had to let go of one another. Just because the higher ups now knew they were an item didn’t mean they could exactly thrust it in the faces of their coworkers. Bad enough they were getting split up as team, but Daria didn’t want to give any of the office gossips a reason to talk about either of them.

Rykov was waiting at the door to one of the conference rooms for them, a neutral expression on her face.
 
Daria felt her stomach turnover, she was very uncomfortable with what was going to happen. She didn't want to be separated from Nicolai.

“Good morning both of you, it is almost afternoon," Rykov said with a thin smile, before she pointed into the room. “Balfour has your assignments booklets inside.

“No direct to tablet?” Daria asked, tapping on her purse. Both their ARC-issued tablets were inside it since Nicolai hadn’t bothered with bringing his beat up brown leather satchel.

“Not this time, no, it’s too sensitive to transmit any way but analog-“ Rykov paused, the petite delicate woman looking past both Nicolai and Daria. Nico turned his head as well, and Daria practically felt the dislike radiating off of him directed at whoever was behind her. There was a breath of air at her back, and she twisted to see for herself.

A tall, well-muscled bulk of a man with thick, short black hair and a half-smile etched on his face stood there. He was handsome, as much as his features were coarser than Nico’s, and he had at least thirty to forty pounds of muscle over Nico as well. The man’s button down blue shirt strained to contain his biceps and it pulled tight over his pectorals. A scar cut down one cheek, ending in a light star-shaped mark along his jaw.

He was intimidating to say the least, and Daria felt herself unconsciously moving into Nico’s space. She felt his hand brush against hers, two fingers sliding along the back of hers and then up to her wrist. It was a gentle ghost of a touch, and it warmed her.

“Bronson Russi,” he said, and his voice matched the rest of him, dark and smoke-filled. His eyes, a rich brown, flicked from Rykov, to Nicolai, and then down to Daria, who felt her diminutive height more than ever. She’d barely come up to the man’s shoulder if she was wearing heels. In her ballet flats, she didn’t come anywhere close. “Guessing you’re Griffin, huh? I’m your new partner, for this mission at least. We get to take each other for a test drive so to speak.”

Daria wasn’t sure why, but she felt caught in his gaze as he spoke directly to her. Rykov cleared her throat when Daria didn’t answer right away and all three of the agents looked at her.

“We can do formal introductions during the meeting, but let’s not keep Balfour waiting anymore. He gets irritating when he’s irritated.”

“I heard that,” Balfour called from inside the conference room. Russi chuckled under his breath, and Daria took the opportunity to duck inside, followed closely by Nico. The conference room was like so many at the ARC headquarters: glass floor to ceiling windows that had the ability to turn black at the touch of a button on the remote, a clear glass-topped conference table with several speaker units along it incase a call needed to be made, and a white wall at the far end that normally would have had files projected on it. Today it was blank, and instead there were thin white booklets at their seats. Daria grabbed a chair and found Rykovtasia slipping in next to her instead of Nico.

He sat across from her, although he didn’t meet her eyes, just flipped open his booklet and stared at the contents blankly. Daria tried not to think what that meant and instead looked at Balfour expectantly. He was seated at the head of the conference table and nodded to all of them in greeting.

“Thanks for coming on short notice, the three of you,” he said, and ignored Rykov’s snort of annoyance at not being included. He shot her a grin instead and then turned over the first page of his information packet. “ARC has been asked by a local police force in upstate Montana to run a surveillance campaign on a suspected eco-terrorist group. We’re going to split into two teams, one at our basecamp made up of Russi and Griffin, the second will be myself, Rykov and Novik doing an actual infiltration mission.”

Daria looked into her booklet and saw the usual information listed: potential targets, locations, an intricate map of the area they would be surveying, information about the group’s background and what resistance they’d likely come up against.

“Guessing this is urgent then, Balfour?” Russi asked with a frown as he looked over his booklet. “Any reason you’re sticking me with the kid?” He jerked his head towards Daria and she tried not to take offense to the clear derision on his voice. He looked like a seasoned vet, someone along the line of Balfour’s experience probably, and he didn’t think much of her. She didn’t open her mouth to protest though. She’d started to become more confident in herself, and Daria knew that she’d only prove herself to someone like Russi by her actions, not by mouthing off to him at a mission briefing.

“We’ll need Novik with us for the actual site infiltration. You two will remain at the safe house, monitoring our equipment and alerting the evac team if we need an extraction,” Balfour said and then he flicked a glance at Daria. “I know it seems like a snoozer assignment, but these people are dangerous. Their counterparts in France just too out a major national monument there last month, and managed to kill fifty people along the way. They’re serious, and we need to treat them with the caution this situation deserves.”

“I’m guessing we tried infiltrating their group already,” Daria mused as she looked at the profiles of the head terrorists. They were all eco-terrorists if their beards were anything to go by. Given their last names, they looked related too.

“Mmm, noticed the last names, did you?” Balfour said, smiling at her in a way that warmed her insides a little. Balfour was handsome by anyone’s measurements, and also unfailingly kind. You wouldn’t know he was a ruthless agent, unaugmented and entirely human but also incredibly lethal on the field. He’d been her first major supporter at ARC, and had gone out of his way to make her comfortable during training.

Beside Daria, Rykov made a small noise.

“Please don’t tell me they’re all related, Balfour,” the smaller, black-haired woman said with a snort. “It’s like the Partridge family, except they blow things up. Just we the sort family values America needs less of right now.” Balfour bit back a laugh.

“No, they’re not all related, but the masterminds are. Five brothers, all grew up in Brooklyn together. Their father was abusive and left home, their mother raised them on her own with help from the local Sisters in their neighborhood. Three of the brothers are here in the US, the other two… well, one was part of the France attack, and the fifth we’re not sure of his whereabouts. They tend to stick together, but we didn’t get a profile on him. We’re assuming he’s in Europe with the other branch of this group, because he hasn’t been seen stateside.” Balfour tapped his finger on the four pictures that were laid out neatly in the booklet. Daria eyed them, the four brothers, before shaking her head.

“Do we know what triggered them? What their demands are?” she asked, wondering what it would take to make a whole family snap. Their abusive father, maybe? The idea of murdering to further environmental goals to her, was crazy. While Daria recycled all her pop bottles religiously, and tried to stick to five minute showers, she didn’t believe in hurting anyone in order to get her way politically.

“Well there’s fracking in Montana, and that’s one of their group’s primary concerns: water safety and water rights. We think they’re going to be moving out to Michigan to play into local concerns there over the drinking water, especially with issues popping up in Flint and Alma. Our job is to survey them now, do an infiltration into their camp and plant remote monitoring devices and figure out what their next moves are going to be.”

Daria eyed the four brothers on her paper again and sighed aloud. Nico was still staring hard at his booklet, his lips compressed into a thin line that was almost a frown.

“You think they’ll try to stir resentment in Michigan maybe, incite riots or something like that?” she asked, before looking around the conference table to the rest of their small group. Nico didn’t meet her eyes, but Russi did, giving her a thoughtful glance. Rykov shrugged one shoulder.

“That whole area of the country is a firekeg waiting to explode. All it would take is the right shove… and…”

“We could be looking at either full scale riots over clean water, the possible murder of local bureaucrats, or an actual terrorist attack of the water management facilities,” Balfour said, his voice soft. Daria felt her stomach turn over. Any of things were bad really. All of those situations meant people would get hurt.

“Things are taking too long, and people don’t feel the authorities are really being held accountable for their actions, or in some cases, lack of action,” Rykov added. “Why wait for the proper channels to funnel money into building new water treatment facilities? If you were to say, blow up the current ones, wouldn’t the government be forced to act at that point? To actually put in the resources right away?”

“I don’t like how you think sometimes, Rykov,” Balfour said, sounding grumpy and put out.

“Because you know I’m right,” she replied with an unhappy curve to her mouth.

“Right,” Nico said, startling the rest of them as he slapped his curled booklet down on the table. “When do we head out?”

Balfour cleared his throat and then smiled briefly.

“This afternoon. Go home, pack for a week-long mission, but expect to be out there possibly double that time. We get back when all the remote monitoring is in place, and we’ve gathered enough information. Any sign of explosives or the equipment needed to unleash an attack, our two basecamp agents will alert the rest of ARC. We’ll be forced to move faster at that point, so let’s hope it’s just plots and plotting they’re cooking up there, and not bombs.” Balfour let his gaze rest on each of them before he pushed back from the table with a sigh. “Alright troops, move out.”

CHAPTER THREE

“They weren’t kidding when they said backwoods cabin, were they,” Daria asked as she stepped out of the black SUV, eyeing what looked to be a fairly abandoned little forest get-away, something that a few hunters might den in more than super-secret agents. She was glad she’d brought along a bag of marshmallows and some other s’mores fixings, because Balfour had muttered to her about a wood-burning fireplace and she was not going to pass up the opportunity to delight in her favorite camp treat.

Especially because there would be times that her end of the mission would be a ‘snoozer’. Monitoring work was always scutwork, meant for new agents or those who’d fucked up and needed to be taught a lesson in humility and patience. Keeping that in mind, she cast an appraising look over at Russi. Every inch of him screamed g-man, and while he wasn’t augmented like Rykov and Nico were, he spent a lot of time lifting cars to get muscles like he had.