Tamed by Love (Agent Lovers Series Book 2) (22 page)

The SEAL shifted from one foot to the other. Shit, what had he let her talk him in to? “Then she’ll be more or less a spectator and stay in the background?”

“Yep, more or less, just like me.”

Banks slumped onto a bench against the wall and continued watching as the women squeezed into a plethora of clothing to give the impression they were men. They wanted to seem more solid so that the prisoners wouldn’t recognize them. Balaclavas would give them the perfect look.

If he had known ahead of time that Elizabeth would drag along a pregnant woman, he would have said, “Hell no.” Or at the very least ignored her calls and texts. He did owe her one. During
hell week
when he was about to collapse, she had psyched him up and encouraged him to continue, didn’t compensate for the wrath she’d incurred from him. The man, whose pregnant wife stood in front of him, would lynch him, shellac him until he wished he’d never been born. With his luck, the guy was a battle-scarred soldier, as good as he was.

What kind of shit had he let himself get into? Wait a minute… “Just like you, Gibson? What are you saying…?”

Liz grinned from ear to ear. “Just call me mommy!”

“Shit, shit. Double shit.” Eddie grimaced and hit his fist against his forehead with every word. “Why are you doing this to me? Why?” Resignation was in his eyes. He braced his elbows on his knees and counted off on his fingers.

“What are you doing?” Liz asked as she slipped on black leather gloves.

“I’m just counting the weeks I’ll spend in the hospital,” Eddie pointed to Jennifer again, “…after her husband is done with me, Gibson.”

Liz laughed and shook her head. “Wrong Eddie.”

“Months?”

“Not Gibson.”

A bad feeling crept over him. Could the situation get any worse for him? It could.

“Blackwood. Not Gibson.”

“The guy who makes me look like a stalk of asparagus and commanded me and my people in Alabama? He’s your husband?”

“Jeff?” She shook her head again and swept a strand of hair behind her ear. “Jeff’s my brother-in-law.”

“And I’m assuming your husband doesn’t weigh fifty pounds less than his brother, isn’t half a head shorter, doesn’t have military training behind him and would look at this whole situation as a funny interlude, or not?”

Jennifer shook her head, chuckling.

“Well…,” Eddie got up from the bench, stretched and considered Liz reproachfully. “Your partner’s laugh says it all. For that I’ll expect a beautiful bouquet of flowers from you on my grave, Blackwood, because it seems likely I won’t live to see my next birthday. And if I do, I’ll probably still be in the ICU.”

“I promise you, Gray will not tear you to pieces.” Liz was ready to go and looked up at Eddie, who looked down at her, resigned.

“Gray? That’s his name?”

“Um hm.”

“At least now I know who will finish me off.” Suddenly he grinned boyishly. “For that you owe me at least two.”

“At least.”

Liz looked at Jennifer and nodded. Jennifer was finished getting dressed and held the balaclava in her hand. Eddie grabbed two gray cardboard boxes from the bench and handed them to the women.

“Being dressed like men isn’t good enough. I brought a couple voice modifiers.”

Together they left the men’s locker room in front of which the other three SEALs were standing guard and left the flat building and climbed into a locked SUV. They would attract much less attention with it than they would with a walk across the base, since the holding cells were on the other end.

Eddie parked the SUV right in front of the two-story building where the holding cells and prisoners were. They went straight inside and stopped in front of the counter where two CIS guards were stationed. Liz and Jennifer held up their IDs. “The prisoners from Alabama. Which holding cells?”

“First I have to check whether agents Langner and Gibson are on the Lt. General’s list,” said one of the guards behind the counter, pulling out a clipboard. After comparing names he nodded. “The last two prisoners are in holding cell eight. The rest have already been relocated. I’ll brief them to give you access.”

“Thank you.”

Eddie and his men followed Liz and Jennifer, murmuring out of earshot of the guards, “How are you still on the list?”

“We’re not, Banks. That’s why we could get through. On the list are all those who have at least our security clearance and don’t have access.”

“So why
aren’t
you on the list?” Then he answered his own question. “I understand now. This lucky coincidence is thanks to, your, um, condition, isn’t it? The Lt. General doesn’t expect you to visit them here in protective custody.”

“You guessed it.”

The six walked down the long hallway, turned the corner and saw a soldier standing guard. Liz returned the salute and held up her ID. “Go have a cup of coffee! We’ll need about ten or fifteen minutes for the interrogation.”

“Understood.”

As soon as the soldier was out of sight, Liz and Jennifer slipped on the balaclavas and attached voice modifiers to their throats, like a Band-Aid. They were ready to go.

A SEAL took up a position in front of the door while Eddie opened the enormous door and entered the holding cell. With two men from his team he positioned himself in the middle of the small room and shielded Liz and Jennifer from possible attack.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Liz said to the two men sprawled out on narrow cots. Her voice sounded deep and rough, not at all like her own.

The prisoners sat up with a jerk and looked curiously from the three SEALs to Liz and Jennifer, whom they thought were men. Liz squeezed her way between Eddie and his neighbor and ignored the warning growl that she should fall back. “We have one or two questions for you. And when you answer, we’ll disappear as quickly as we came. Then you can go back to sleep.”

“Save your breath and go right now. We’re not making any statements. We already told the lieutenant general fella more than once. And that’s how it stays.”

“Really too bad,” said Jennifer, standing next to Liz. She, too, ignored Eddie’s warning growl. Jennifer tilted her head, knit her brows and gave the guy an ice-cold glare. “The fella you spoke with was our advance party. Today we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty.”

Eddie shot past Jennifer, grabbed the first of the men by the collar in a lightning quick movement and tore him up from the bed. Then he gave him a powerful uppercut to the jaw and the prisoner landed at her feet. The second prisoner tried to rush to his buddy’s aid, but was likewise sent to the floor with a kick from Eddie and were held there by the other two SEALs.

“We’ll ask you nicely one last time. Just tell us who you bought the documents from. We don’t want to know anything else,” said Liz as she approached the prisoner whom Eddie kept on the ground with a foot.

“Piss off, asshole! You can’t do anything to us!” Filled with hate, he looked from Liz to Eddie, whose boot was on the guy’s windpipe and strangling his air supply. The prisoner gasped for breath, wheezing. “Nothing. Understood? Absolutely nothing,” he choked out.

Liz pulled out a small case from the pocket on her thigh and opened it. Then she took out a syringe and pointed it toward the prisoners. “You two surely know what the skull and crossbones mean?” Liz gave a gruesome laugh. “I have one for each of you. Another won’t be necessary.”

She crouched down and held the needle over the face of the prisoner, whose head was being kept down by Eddie’s boot. She lightly pressed the plunger on the syringe. A small drop emerged from the hypodermic needle and fell on the gray linoleum. Immediately the affected surface reacted and bubbled. The liquid burned an ugly hole in the linoleum and the prisoner under Eddie’s foot swallowed hard.

“Applied externally, the shit causes really nasty burns. But you can survive that. Especially if the amount is pretty small.” Again Liz laughed maniacally. “But when it’s injected, you don’t have a chance, my friend. With every beat of your heart, this venom is pumped into every one of your organs. It eats away at you from the inside. No chance. Game over.”

Jennifer glanced at the prisoner and shrugged. It was time to get into the act. “Let it pop, buddy! The pop is really awesome. The last time he didn’t pop. He just stopped screaming.”

“P-p-pop?” The prisoner was trembling and didn’t take his eyes off the hovering syringe.

“The eyeballs,” Jennifer explained. “In nine out of ten cases they make a fun popping sound when one of them has been exposed. She bumped Liz gently with her knee. “Come on! Don’t make me keep begging. He’s not going to talk.”

Liz shrugged, leaned forward and pulled the man’s arm down.

“Wait!” Genuine panic was in the prisoner’s eyes, because he really believed they would kill him in this beastly manner. He struggled and squirmed on the floor like a snake. But it wasn’t difficult for Eddie to secure him. “Wait, son of a bitch! ET,” the prisoner said.

“You can bullshit your grandma.” Again Liz leaned forward, paused when he roared loudly.

“Eddie. Eddie T. I don’t know anything more. Really. That’s all I know.”

“The guy who sold you the info is called ET?” Liz scrutinized the man. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead. He was completely done in from fear. Then she looked up at the second prisoner. Immediately he began to struggle against the two SEALS because all the attention had suddenly turned to him. “I don’t know anything else either. I swear it. ET.”

After a brief nod from Liz, Eddie and his people released the two prisoners and took a position close to the women.

“Smart decision, my friend. Very smart.” Liz put the syringe back in the case. “You not only saved yourself some serious pain and a gruesome ordeal, but also the cleaning personnel some overtime in order to mop up your mess.”

Without looking back, Liz, Jennifer and the three SEALs left the holding cell. The enormous door closed behind them and the two women pulled the balaclavas off their heads before they removed the distorters from their throats.

“We beat our best time, Jenny. Not even ten minutes and they sang like canaries.” Liz smirked to herself, walked down the hallway and greeted the soldier who was coming toward them to take up his post again.

“I said they should have let us do that weeks ago. But no one ever listens to me.”

Eddie said, “You know you missed your calling. You would have been great actresses. It wouldn’t have taken much and I wouldn’t have been able to keep up my affected death face.
Let it pop, buddy!”
Eddie imitated Jennifer and laughed. “Magnificent!”

***

“Chris, isn’t that your car up ahead?” Gray asked and indicated the black Grand Cherokee that was three rows ahead in the parking lot at the strip mall. He had said he would take care of the shopping. And why had Jeff or Terence gone so far anyway? After all, there was a small shop just five miles from the house.

“That really is mine.” Chris reached for his cellphone and called the house. Jeff picked up after the second ring.

“Where’s Terence?”

“In the office. Why? Do you want to talk to him?”

“If you’re both in the house, can you tell me why my SUV is in a strip mall parking lot?”

“That’s not possible! Terence and I have been in the office for hours. No one has left the house or taken your car.”

“What’s up with Jennifer and Liz?”

“They’re sleeping. I was just upstairs and looked in on them.”

Gray requested the phone and asked, “How close did you check their beds to see they were really in them?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I opened the door, looked in, saw them under the covers, and walked out.”

“Do me a favor and look in on them again. And look closer!”

“Okay, whatever,” said Jeff as he climbed the stairs and looked in on Liz. “If she wakes up and gives me hell, it’ll be on you, Gray!”

“Simmer down and look in on her,” Gray said and climbed out of the Mercedes to be on the lookout for Liz and Jennifer. Then he heard Jeff swear on the other end and yell for Terence.

“Liz’s gone,” Jeff said, stunned. Brief pounding noises were heard. Then, “Shit. Jennifer’s gone too. They put blow-up dolls in the beds. This is unreal!
Blow-up dolls
!”

“Calm down! We’ll find out where they are. We’ll call you later.” With that, Gray gave Chris his phone back and headed for the strip mall.

***

“I’d love to take you up on your offer for a cup of coffee, but we really have to go.” Liz headed for the prison exit, and turned around to Eddie. “Will you drop us off on the street by the strip mall?”

“Of course. Then I can enjoy your company for a little while longer.” He looked up at the door that had just opened. “Oh, shit!”

Eddie stopped suddenly and stared over Liz’s head as if he were paralyzed. Then she looked toward the door and formed a wordless, “Oh.”

“What are you doing here?” Chris asked. He ignored the SEALs. Instead, his gaze was fixed on Jennifer whose eyes were wide with surprise.

“I was wondering that myself,” said Gray, staring at Liz. She looked at Jennifer and raised her eyebrows as if she wanted to ask her how their husbands had known where to find them. After all, they’d only been on base for half an hour at the most.

“You know very well you weren’t supposed to leave the house. At least, not alone!”

“But—”

“No buts, Liz! You’re both pregnant, dammit! We’ll take care of this and you stay where you’re safe. There won’t be any more adventures like this. You’re permanently off the job! Do you two understand me?” When they didn’t answer, he pressed again, gritting his teeth. “Do you understand me?”

“Yeah, sure!” said Liz and let herself be pulled from the building. She looked at Jennifer who was being guided into the Cherokee. The men must have discovered it in the parking lot.
Crap
. She dropped into the passenger seat of the SUV. Today was not her lucky day.

The whole trip home Liz tried to explained to Gray what had happened, but he didn’t want to hear it. He turned the radio up louder and stared at the road. He didn’t dignify his wife with so much as a glance. Liz finally gave up, looked out of the window and waited. After all, Gray couldn’t be angry with her forever.