Authors: Eliza March
“She’s checked out. The security is tight.”
“I’m supposed to trust his opinion? Someone left the damn backdoor open. Don’t talk to me about secure,” Cade snapped and slammed his phone on the desk. “I need a weapon.”
He rummaged around inside Reinhardt’s bag while Rowan and Mosel watched him pull out a Remington 12 gauge shotgun. “Reinhardt, I need a Glock .40 S&W, 10 mm and…”
“On the left.”
Cade found what he was looking for and suddenly felt a little more relaxed.
“Feel better?” Rowan asked with a smirk on her face. “Having a little separation anxiety from your weapons, Mr. James?”
“Smart ass.” Cade pulled her against him and laid a big one on her, forgetting Reinhardt was watching.
As soon as he released her, he looked straight at Reinhardt and glared. Mosel’s eyebrows almost hit his hairline, silently saying, “So that’s the way it is.”
Cade nodded once to him and he nodded once back.
“If you’ve finished marking your territory, Cade, I have work to do.” Rowan smiled before she marched off in the direction of her office.
“I-I’m not—” he stammered then shut up until she was out of earshot. For a split second Cade almost, just almost felt ridiculous, but her taste lingered on his lips and Mosel’s stupid shit-eating grin made him feel better.
“So you like the girl, huh?”
“What’s not to like? She’s rich and smart and beautiful.”
…and man how she made him feel when she took him in her mouth…
He was
not
letting his mind go there.
“You want to go over your plans for her project?” Mosel could be included on an as need to know basis.
“We are looking to develop it using the defense cypher to protect the satellite and military systems…for now.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Really, only what Emily has told me.”
Mosel’s eyes went flat at the mention of Cade’s sister-in-laws’s name.
“How is Emily? And the children?”
“Mosel…” The big man just stared at Cade. “She’s fine, man. They’re all fine. Happy.” Silence, almost to the awkward point, filled the dead air. “She was always his, you know?” Cade added. “She loved him as long as I’ve know her. Hell, she was maybe five or six. It was like they’d been created for each other but Jason would never admit it.”
Mosel ran his hand over his short hair and kept shaking his head. “I knew. I don’t know why I let myself think it could be otherwise. Rowan reminds me of her in a way.”
At the mention of Rowan’s name, both of the men became suddenly aware that they’d dropped their guard at the same time.
“I don’t like her being on that side of the building alone,” Cade said.
Mosel shifted to the console. “Neither do I, but I took precautions.”
“If she won’t let us in…” Cade followed him. “We can wait outside her door? Right?”
“Certainly.” Reinhardt punched in a few buttons on the console. “Fuck! She’s gone.”
“What?” Cade slammed into the mountain of a man as he rose from the console.
“The tracker. I placed one on her and it isn’t picking her up inside the building.”
“Look outside.” Cade scrambled to the control board and zipped through the monitors.
“There…there’s the signal. She is heading out to…” Mosel peered closer to the screen. “I think Snake has a contact in that part of town.” Mosel shoved the tracking device into Cade’s hand. “Take this and check her computer for any incoming messages.”
“You think I can hack her password that fast?”
“No.” He looked at Cade as if he had four heads. “It’s eWsQUE_1^!”
“Really? She told you her password?”
“Of course. We help each other out.”
“I’m sleeping with her and he has her password. What the fuck!” Cade tapped the password in cursing under his breath. Later he and Rowan were going to have a little talk about trust and misplaced loyalties.
Mosel was pulling out all kinds of weapons from his bag of tricks, while Cade searched the last few minutes of Rowan’s messages.
“Shit, she got a message from Ahmet.” Cade’s blood drained from his head and his fingers stopped dead on the keyboard. “Mosel, he told her you’re with IATO. She knows we were playing her, lying to her.”
“What difference does it make? She’s known all along you aren’t being completely honest with her.”
“Yes, there’s that too, but at first IATO wanted to stop her—”
Mosel looked stunned. “As in a kill order?”
“Yes. When Jason refused, I talked them into buying the technology, helping her develop it, to use to our advantage. Ahmet told her about the assassination order from IATO. ‘Stop COBRA or her at all costs.’ doesn’t sound like ‘Please convince her to cooperate.’ ”
“Call Emily and warn her and call your brother, too. We need to get to her and explain.”
“Duh! I think I said that. But she’s seriously on the run now!”
“I’ve known her a long time. She’ll never believe you. She has trust issues.”
“Funny, we were just talking about that.”
“What the hell is she up to?” the giant roared.
Cade broke out into a cold sweat. “She’s running, and as soon as she gets the first opportunity, she’s going to turn COBRA on IATO.” Cade followed Mosel out the door, picking up the shotgun on the way out. Mosel waved him on and took off across the block to the building where Ahmet had an office.
“Can we stop her?” Mosel asked. “Will she believe you?”
“I don’t know. I’m more afraid that she’s been setup. We have to stop Ahmet from taking her.”
“I’ve seen what he can do to extract information. It’s not pretty.”
If Cade’s stomach hadn’t already been tied up in knots, and his mind ready to explode he’d have been worried, instead he began doing what he always did when he was in a tight situation. He slowed everything down to a crawl. Slow-mo was the answer for him. Cade began a detailed analysis of every second he’d spent with Rowan and began evaluating the situation. She was too smart to fall for Ahmet’s tricks.
“I think she’s setting Ahmet up to get to the IMTC.”
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Snake’s location had been the only test Rowan had run. The message from an associate of the International Muslim Terrorist Coalition [IMTC] named Ahmet, no last name available, claimed to have information about IATO. This man was on Snake’s contact list, she remembered. He was someone he’d been working with, and the one who had now sent a message claiming IATO was prepared to take COBRA or kill her. Whoever this was knew too much about her.
He’d claimed Reinhardt and Cade knew and worked together before. Maybe that much was true. Reinhardt had brought Cade’s weapons of choice. How did he know? The information rang true because Cade kept fishing for information, and they had been in the driveway speaking furtively until Reinhardt looked up and spotted her at her window.
At the time, a shiver of worry ran down her spine. Now disappointment washed over her. She wondered when the doubt would end. She needed her own plan. Back to square one. Who to trust. For now, not the terrorist Ahmet or Snake, the arms dealer who would betray his own mother. Documented evidence supported their guilt on multiple fronts. Neither had ever been trustworthy.
After thinking through her options, Rowan was certain she shouldn’t be the heroine who goes down into the dark basement to confront a possible serial killer. The too dumb to live scenario wasn’t one she saw herself doing. Instead, she called her father to warn him of possible repercussions once she sorted through this maze. He’d send support. He had plenty in the area already.
Before Cade and Mosel caught up to her, and she was certain they would, she needed to run the COBRA program again and this time on IATO. A back up of their data would be leverage, insurance to keep her and her program safe if anything Ahmet suggested was true. After all, he did have the voice message with someone giving the kill order.
Really? She was supposed to believe in the human race after all this. What a load of malarkey.
Half an hour later, she had what she wanted in her private vault. No matter what, the insurance policy was intact. She knew who she would be dealing with, and she’d informed all parties involved of the situation. Snake’s information had been sent to Jacqui at Omega, IATO’s to a contact named Emily who was Cade’s sister-in-law, and copies of both went to her father. He’d keep the data until she ordered her to give it to Dame Lily Hampstead. Her old mentor would know what to do with the information should anything happen to her.
Rowan released a sigh before she decided to follow her heart. Cade would never betray her. On her way back to find him, she wondered who discovered she was the one with the capability of creating COBRA and released the information? Frustration ate at her. The lobby doors from Ahmet’s office weren’t locked yet, so she pushed straight through. And ran into Groot.
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
The young man grabbed her by the arms and stared her down. From his strange expression, he wasn’t surprised to see her but he wasn’t exactly acting normally, either. It was as if he’d been waiting for her. “Run,” he whispered.
Suddenly she had her answer. She knew who’d leaked the information about COBRA and her. Groot Becker was the only one with enough inside information to put it all together.
She glared into his face and thought she saw his eyes flicker with regret for a brief moment. “Why?”
There were dark circles beneath his eyes, and he hadn’t shaved in several days. At least he had a conscience. He hadn’t been sleeping well from the look of things. He opened his mouth like a fish out of water, but just as he tried to speak, Rowan was torn from his grasp and shoved away.
The huge, arms dealer whipped the computer geek aside and shoved him to the floor face first. Reinhardt was a bull. He torqued Groot’s arms high behind his back, until the man screamed.
“Reinhardt, wait.” Rowan didn’t know what to do. “That’s my assistant, Groot.”
The young fit security guard behind the desk jumped up and shoved his way past an over-turned chair, heading toward them, but he stopped immediately as soon as Cade aimed the Glock at his head, and Reinhardt snapped for him to step back. It was obvious the situation had escalated above his pay grade. He couldn’t have handled the situation even if he wanted to. Cade made a mental note to have him replaced.
Suddenly shots sounded outside. Cade moved in behind her, surveyed the situation in a split-second, and tried to herd her to the elevator. “Get inside.”
Cade paused, and then more shots went off. He continued pushing her toward cover. When she didn’t move, he shoved her into the elevator and slammed his hand against the buttons.
“Rowan, stay down and head to cover as soon as you get to your floor.” He stared into her eyes begging for trust.
She didn’t need to be told twice. Rowan nodded and whispered her trust, “My private office.”
Cade’s eyes widened knowing what she meant. “Lock up tight and don’t come out until I tell you,” he yelled. She looked up at the very last second before the doors closed. He frowned and went to help Reinhardt.
Cade knelt behind a post, shot gun in one hand and his Glock out in front, aiming through the shattered front window into the rain at an unknown assailant. He held the gun steady as he scanned out front, but he couldn’t see squat. Then the monitors at the guard’s station drew his attention. Looking for movement on the screens, he scanned them until he found Ahmet blocking Rowan’s access to her office.
Ahmet was leaning over Rowan, who was slumped on the floor. She didn’t move while he handcuffed her. Somehow he’d circled around upstairs to her side of the building and stopped her at gunpoint in the hallway outside her secured office.
“Mosel, it’s all been a diversionary tactic,” he shouted. “Ahmet has Rowan on the third floor hallway. I’m going in after her up the stairwell. You block the elevators.”
Right before he rounded the corner to the stairwell, Mosel hit the elevator door pounding on the button until the door slid open. Cade ran down the hallway, slammed into the stairwell doors, and took the steps a half a flight at a time.
He’d been screaming Rowan’s name all the way up, but he knew she wasn’t going to answer. Mosel burst out of the elevator.
“Mosel! Go to the hallway near her office. He’ll take her to the computer.”
“On it.” A few minutes later, Mosel’s voice came back defeated. “Not here.”
“We have to find her!”
“I think they’ve got her, Cade.”
“No. No.” Cade returned to the monitors and rewound the last few minutes. Ahmet, not much bigger than Rowan, had managed to carry her unconscious form out the back to a black Fiat.
“Relax, Cade, she has her gun. He didn’t find it. Didn’t even bother checking her for weapons.”
“He might. We need to go after them. Get Groot. What did you find out from the geek?”
“He knows where they’re taking her, and he’s ready to cooperate.”
Reinhardt’s Hummer idled outside. “Get in. The guard brought it around.”
“I’ll call Jason and relay our status. He should be landing any minute.”
As soon as he hit the seat, Cade was on the phone with Jason’s aircrew, tracking down the information Groot gave him on the warehouse that Rowan owned.
Cade glanced at Mosel and noticed he had blood running down his right arm. “Reinhardt, you’re bleeding. Are you okay?”
“Nicked by a concrete chip.” He looked okay otherwise…pissed, but okay.
Mosel took his eyes off the road for a second and glanced at Cade before looking back at the road. “So are you.” He tapped his head to show Cade where the blood was coming from. Cade wiped at the spot and came away with concrete too. The shots had come too close for comfort.
“You have that tracker I gave you?” Mosel asked.
“Oh hell, right, the tracker. Shit, it’s right here. Take a right at the next street.”
He accelerated then made a sharp turn. “Another right. Faster.”
“He told me the warehouse. Why would he lie?” Groot was hogtied up in the back seat and growing paler by the minute. “Oh my God, if anything happens to her I’ll—”
“You won’t have to worry about that, Mr. Becker, because we’ll take care of you. I was a Navy SEAL. You know what that means? …Mosel! Take a left at that light,” Cade said waving the tracker in the air. He turned and pointed a very large, very sharp knife at Groot. “I can kill you a hundred different ways. Each way more painful than the next.”
“Right or left?” Mosel asked.
Cade wanted to scream in frustration. They were literally seconds behind the people who had taken Rowan, but there was no sign of them on the busy streets. The tracker says we should be able to see them up ahead.
“Where?” He glanced at Groot in the back seat, but he shrugged his shoulders and guessed, “West of the roundabout.”
Reinhardt turned left immediately in spite of oncoming traffic. Horns blared as he crossed the small two-lane street. “Looking for a black Fiat in the warehouse district,” he shouted into his phone. There were a few of his men out looking for Rowan, too.
Cade snapped his phone closed. “The tracker says we’re heading in the wrong direction.”
“Fuck!” Reinhardt spun the Humvee around and headed in the opposite direction, toward the apartment. “There’s no chance they brought her to his apartment.”
“Ahmet is an experienced terrorist, Groot. He would lie to you. I would.” Cade knew Ahmet wouldn’t be stupid enough to take her to a place he’d discussed with her assistant or back to his place. “He’d take her to
her
office—to where the main system is.”
“You’re right.” Mosel nodded. “But we need a backup plan if he isn’t there.”
Cade ran his hands down his face, and back and forth over his day old scruff. “Jason,” he shouted into his phone, “Where else would they take her?”
“We’ll cover the train station and her warehouse, but my bet’s on the main system. He’d take her to the system. I’ll send a few men there to help out in case you need it.”
* * * * *
Rowan’s head throbbed where Ahmet had hit her, and she ached all over. Something was wrong. She listened to the sounds around her, but couldn’t distinguish where they were. There were street sounds of traffic, but she was cuffed and covered with a smelly old coat in the backseat of a small vehicle. Her gun was still in the thigh holster. She tested her wrists, checking to see if there was any wiggle room. Not much, but there was enough for her to reach down and get her Beretta.
Ahmet spoke into his phone and nodded once. “Head for her place. Good. And you’re sure they’re heading in the other direction?” Ahmet was turned away from her. And so was his guard.
If she stayed completely still with the coat draped around her there was no chance they would see her reach inside her pants for the gun, but to chamber a round she had to drag the slide back, and that would make noise. Rowan kept her hand tight on the grip of her pistol.
* * * * *
“Jason, I need eyes in the air around her compound. I don’t care how you do it but they need to be ready to go in if I can’t get there.” Cade silently urged Mosel to drive faster. It was why he’d let him drive. He didn’t trust himself not to just plow the Humvee into the building and drag her out.
“Alpha 2, I have a visual. Over.”
Cade pressed the earpiece tight to his ear so as not to miss anything. “Request you say again.”
“I have a visual. Tangos are located in the northwest corner of the office. Three tangos in all, two standing, one seated. Over.”
“Roger. Out.”
He looked at Mosel, whose lips were grim with concentration as he navigated the driveway. “Grab a mic on the way out.”
“Alpha 2, I have movement inside the building. Are you in position? Over.”
“Positive,” Cade shouted. “We are in position. Over.”
“Permission to engage, over?”
Cade didn’t even hesitate. “Negative. We will engage.”
Whatever he needed to do to keep her safe he would do it, but this was Rowan and he wouldn’t risk her being collateral damage in a firefight. His heartbeat raced and he balled his fists.
Mosel seemed just as much on edge, because the Humvee jumped a curb and took a corner on two wheels. “Stop, Mosel. Let me out here.”
Cade jumped and rolled into the bushes beside the house. He’d seen enough of the security to know how to get in without being spotted.
* * * * *
Rowan tensed just inside the door as Ahmet’s guard walked toward her. There were outside noises, the sound of a helicopter overhead, shots, lights, scuffling. Her thoughts raced and her hand tightened on the butt of the gun. Her heart, on the other hand, completely stopped beating.
Now. It had to be now!
Tossing the coat from her shoulders, she lunged to her feet. The guard drew closer aiming his weapon at her head, and she lifted her pistol. He didn’t even pause as he advanced. But neither did she.
She scraped the slide back with her hand, loading the bullet. The little Beretta recoiled in her hand as she squeezed the trigger, but she blinked. She hit his upper chest. The smirk left his face, replaced by utter disbelief. He paused, dipped his head, and she fired again just as he reached her.