White Hot: A Patrick & Steeves Suspense (4 page)

D
al dug
his fingers into the arm around his neck. Bastard had a grip like a vice. Letting his body go limp a fraction of a second and slumping slightly into the man behind him, he then bent forward quickly slamming the man onto his back on the floor and falling with him. He rolled off to the side and gulped in air.

“Good job, Steeves,” his trainer said, clapping him on the shoulder before he jumped to his feet. “You’re in decent shape.”

Decent shape? He’d like to dress this guy in full firefighting gear and send him up twenty flights of stairs to see if he was in decent shape. “We’re pretty active at the fire house,” he said, wiping his brow as he got to his feet.

“Did you wrestle in school?” asked the military combat trainer who had insisted Dal call him Todd.

Dal crossed to the bench, grabbed a bottle of water and took a long swig. “Senior year. I made the team.”

“It shows.” Todd picked up his watch from the bench and checked the time. “I have an appointment, but first I’ll set you up in the shooting gallery. Bring your things.” Grabbing his clipboard, where he’d jotted a series of notes and ticks during the day, Todd walked across the room, not bothering to avoid the mats strewn everywhere. Dal slid his feet into his shoes, picked up his water and followed.

* * *

F
lipping
up the switch to bring the paper target closer, Dal admired his work. He’d managed to hit the target repeatedly in both the face and chest. Was he supposed to be shooting to kill? Maybe next round he’d work on hitting the shoulders. He attached a new sheet, sent the target back down to the end of the cable, put a new clip in the gun, and adjusted the earmuffs on his head.

He found target practice strangely relaxing. Almost like meditation. It required most of his focus and helped still his mind. The dulled banging soothed him. Like the beat of a drum beneath a favorite song it added a rhythm without detracting from the melody.

He was aware of others around him but it was a solitary activity and he welcomed the down time. He hadn’t had a minute to himself since the meeting at the hotel. Earlier than that really, but the time he’d spent in the truck with Emily, driving to the meeting, didn’t count. Every second of that time had been pleasurable and he wondered what she was doing now. He was looking forward to working together.

Aiming at the inside right shoulder near the collarbone, he squeezed the trigger, once, twice, three times. His meeting with Jill hadn’t been so pleasurable. He didn’t have a problem with women in authority - the captain at his first firehouse was a woman - but something about Jill didn’t sit well with him. He’d left his meeting with her feeling like he needed a shower. The woman was clearly a skilled manipulator but not quite subtle enough to fly under his radar. He fired another round into the left shoulder, then aimed straight for the face.

“
J
ack speaks very highly
of you, Ms. Patrick.” Jill folded herself into the leather armchair facing Emily in the corner of the large office. Emily kept stealing glances at the Pacific, as if she’d never seen the ocean before. The waves sparkled and danced in the sunlight, a radical change from her last experience on the water.

Jill had kept her waiting over ten minutes while she wrapped up a phone call and then took another. Emily spent the time scoping out the diplomas on the walls, the framed photographs of Jill with different politicians and heads of state. There were shots of her at state dinners, one posed in African tribal headgear, one on vacation in a wildlife preserve.

Emily wasn’t in the mood for small talk. She itched to get back to Mexico so she could take down Jack and prove to them all she was right about him. She leaned forward. “Do you really believe that Jack isn’t dirty?”

Jill’s shoulders tensed. “He’s given years of excellent service—”

“He tried to kill me.” She enunciated each word separately, dropping each of them like a tiny bomb.

“That’s your word against his. Your father seems to feel—”

“My
father
wasn’t there. Are you saying Jack trying to kill isn’t credible?” She instinctively pulled back in her chair, her gaze running from Jill’s expensive shoes to her manicured nails. A shiver of disdain worked its way up her spine. Had she ever been in the field herself? She guessed she’d never actually had to do any of the dirty work herself.

Jill squared her shoulders and fixed her eyes on Emily’s. “Stand down, Patrick.”

Emily sucked in a breath. Page was her superior, what the hell was she doing? She met the woman’s eyes - they didn’t reveal an iota of emotion. Emily held her glare, determined to regain her composure.

“The truth is,” Jill continued, in a softer voice, “we had a similar… incident in the past. With another operative.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m afraid you don’t have the clearance for that. But look, if you can get me video, that would make your claim more credible.”

“Are you saying you believe me?”

“What I said was, if you can get me video proof, I’ll have something more to go on. Can you do that? Get some video while you’re down there?”

It was better than nothing. A chink, an opening. Emily nodded.

Jill tilted her head to the left, raised a perfectly shaped brow and continued. “Now that we’ve put that to bed, let me speak plainly, Ms. Patrick. You did a hell of a job down there last week. You were thrown into a difficult situation and handled it beautifully.

“Nobody is surprised by this based on your record and reputation in Afghanistan.”

Emily shifted in her seat, a flush rising in her cheeks. Was the air conditioner on?

Jill leaned forward slightly, reached a manicured hand toward her, apparently thought better of it and said, “I know you’ve been in counseling for PTSD. Nobody blames you for what happened over there, and, of course, we’ll continue to support you in continued counseling. Should you choose.”

She nodded. Would she would report directly to Page now? The very thought of it unnerved her, not trusting the woman’s thin veneer. “I got the impression from your assistant this morning that our assignment will be… covert.”

“Officially that’s true. It’s one reason we moved your office and put the extra security measures in place. On the record, you’re being transferred to a field position with the NSA, moving you out of the Embassy. But the assignments that go on your record won’t line up with what you’ll actually be doing.”

“I see.” She couldn’t help but wonder why a woman as busy as Page would take time out of her day to repeat things Emily already knew.

“You know all this,” Jill said, waving her words away. “I need to talk to you about Steeves.”

Sensing the cobra readying to strike, Emily leaned slightly back in her seat. “Yes?”

“You and Steeves worked well together, no question. But when it comes down to it, you’re the one with the military training and he’s a firefighter. A damn good firefighter, and obviously an asset in a conflict…” she paused and sought Emily’s eyes. “We’re sending you out there as a team, but I want to be clear about this. We need you to be the point person. I’m counting on you to lead this mission, Emily.”

“I see,” she said, brushing a piece of lint from her pant leg. “And Dal? Does he know I’ll be the lead?”

“I don’t think that would be wise,” she said, “do you?”

“I don’t think he’d have a problem with it,” Emily replied. “It’s one reason we worked well together. Firefighting isn’t a solitary job, you know … their lives depend on them working in teams.”

“True. But my discussion with his Captain and District Fire Chief indicated …” she let her words trail off. “Let’s just say that I want you to be in front on this mission. Strategic decisions will need to be made and I’m counting on you to be able to make them.”

She rose, indicating the meeting was over, so Emily stood as well. Jill placed two fingers on her forearm. “Not a word of this to Steeves.”

Emily nodded, wondering if she could keep that promise, and fell into step beside Jill as she crossed the room.

As Jill approached the door, Emily turned to her. “You couldn’t have given me a heads up about my father?”

“I left that decision to him. He did what he thought was best,” she said, hand on the doorknob. “Dal is in the training facility, my secretary will give you directions. You should go and meet him there now. And tomorrow morning, we need you back here at oh seven hundred sharp to be chipped.”

“Chipped?” Emily turned to her. Would there be no end to her dislike of this woman? “You mean like microchipped so you can track us?”

“Just takes a minute,” Jill said, swinging the door open and ushering Emily through it. “How do you think we found Jack?”

D
al passed
the extra packet of ketchup to Emily admiring the way she tucked into her burger and fries. They’d both been starving and had picked up food from a take-out and driven to one of his favorite spots overlooking the ocean. Cars surrounded them, filled mostly with groping teens and hopeful lovers this time of night, but it didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for the view.

“Try this?” he asked, extending his shake toward Emily.

She scrunched her nose. “Licorice in a shake is just wrong.”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” he laughed. It had been a long day. When she’d walked into the training facility around four, he’d thought she was there to pick him up. Instead, the trainer had them working on hand-to-hand combat together almost until after eleven.

At first, he’d been afraid he was going to hurt her. He got over that the third time she’d slammed him to the mat. She was tough, she was fast, and she’d given him a hell of a workout. Any lingering misgivings about being with her in the field were wiped away. Not that he had any, really. He had the utmost respect and confidence in her abilities, given she’d already gotten him home alive once.

“I saw a missed call from you earlier,” he said, dipping a fry into a mound of ketchup before shoving it in his mouth.

“Checking in, that’s all” she replied. “This is the best burger I’ve had in a long time.” She took another huge bite, swiping at the sauce that dribbled down her chin.

“So… tomorrow,” he tried again.

“Yeah, we’ll be leaving before noon. But - get this - they want to chip us in the morning.”

“Microchip? So they can track us?”

She burst out laughing. “That’s exactly what I said. And yes, so they can track us. Apparently,” she continued, meeting his gaze, “that’s how they found Jack.”

“Hmmm.” He chewed another fry, taking some time to formulate his next question. “How do you feel about being chipped?”

“I didn’t get the sense it was optional.” She turned to him. “I have to say, I don’t really have a warm, fuzzy feeling about Jill.”

Dal smiled, then burst out laughing.

“What?”

“I thought… I thought… about Jill… that I was glad we were on the same ‘page’.”

Emily dropped her burger and covered her mouth, giggling like a schoolgirl. He laughed with her, the tension and hyper-vigilance of the day releasing.

“There’s something about that woman I don’t like either,” he continued, more serious. “Did she give you any assurances about the chips? How do we know they won’t track us all the time?”

“She didn’t tell me anything beyond what time to show up in the morning.”

“Seems like a huge invasion to our privacy.” He didn’t like it, not at all.

She turned to him. “I agree. On the other hand, in a tight situation, they might be the thing that saves us.”

He finished off his fries and threw the boxes back in the paper sack sitting on the seat between them. “How did things go with your father?”

Silence dropped over them like a curtain, as Emily looked out the side window and finished chewing.

“That’s a big shock to deal with, is all I’m saying,” he said.

She set what was left of her burger in the box on the dash and turned to him. “I’m still processing it. We talked over breakfast. He explained most of it but…”

Tilting his head, he held his tongue, waited for her to continue.

“We had a big blowout at the end. He refuses to believe anything I say about Jack. He insisted Jack did the things he did because he was ‘deep undercover’.” She threw air quotes around the last phrase.

“That’s bullshit. How could he not believe you?” He reached for her hand, but she shifted closer to the door and turned back to the window. Her lip trembled and she took a slow deep breath before speaking again.

She turned back to him and shook her head. “I don’t know. We’ll have to prove it while we’re down there. In fact, I did talk to Jill about it again and she asked me to get video proof.”

“That’s something.” The truck was getting stuffy. He cracked the window. “What else did your father tell you? I mean, has he been doing this your whole life without you knowing?”

“I can’t tell you,” she said. “It’s more of a need-to-know situation.”

Dal’s stomach clenched. “You don’t think I need to know?”

She shrugged. “No, I don’t.”

“We’re supposed to be a team. Surely whatever clearance you have, I would have the same.”

“This is more… personal.” Her voice dropped and she turned her face away.

“All right,” he said, reaching out to stroke her arm. “Keep in mind that we’re going to depend on each other out there for our lives. Like we do in firefighting.”

“It’s not the same,” she said, standing her ground.

“It’s exactly the same. In firefighting we share everything we know and we have to trust one hundred percent that we have each other’s backs.”

She refused to meet his eyes, fiddled with the burger box, threw it in the paper sack on the seat.

“I won’t press you, Em,” he continued. “But I hope you reconsider. We need to be completely open with each other, a true team, otherwise it won’t work.”

* * *

S
he couldn’t rehash
it all again tonight. Her eyes slid to the digital clock in the dash. It was well after midnight and she’d been on the go since before dawn. According to Jill, they weren’t a team. Emily was to lead them, be the point person. There was no way in hell she could tell Dal that now.

“Can we get out of here? It’s been a long day and I want to go home.” She’d left her car at the training facility but she’d deal with that tomorrow.

He dropped the truck into reverse. She stared out the window on the ride home, gut tight, the words unspoken hanging in the air. She’d almost prefer an outburst to his carefully controlled frustration.

“You sure you don’t want to stay with me tonight?” He grinned as he pulled onto her street. “We have to be up in a few hours anyway.”

She swiveled toward him. “How could you say that when you’re so angry?”

“I’m not angry, I’m —”

“You’re angry, Dal.”

He reached his hand toward her, but she pulled back. “I’m frustrated,” he said. “With the situation. Not with you.”

“We have to be able to separate things, Dal.” She chose her words carefully. “I like what we have together, but it’s new. We can’t let it get in the way of our work.”

“So is that a no?” His grin tugged his lip up.

“Yes, it’s a no. I need to throw some things together, and…” She let the thought trail off. What she needed was space. Time to regroup and prepare herself for the task that lay ahead of them. This time tomorrow they’d be at the ranch in Mexico in the thick of things.

He slowed the truck to a crawl.

“Going slower won’t make me change my mind,” she teased, trying to lessen the sting of her rejection.

“Did you leave your apartment door open this morning?” He jutted his chin toward her apartment. She turned to see the door standing open. Through the window facing the lot, she could make out the beam of a flashlight weaving through the living room.

Dal pulled the truck to the side ready to leap out. She grabbed his arm and shook her head. “No,” she said, “keep going. We’ll drive by. It’s probably Jack’s men.”

He nodded and rolled steadily through the lot past the open door into her suite. A black SUV was parked at the far curb. Emily slid down in her seat.

“Looks like Jack’s men for sure,” he said, pulling back into the road and keeping an even speed to avoid notice. “Should we call someone?”

“We can’t call the San Diego Police, if that’s what you mean. We’ll be filling out reports all night.”

“Should I pull around?”

“No.” She pulled out her cell phone and captured a shot of the license plate. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”