Carlos smiled. She had him there. Part of Hunter’s use to BAD as an agent was his social contacts and ability to gain access to the criminally rich.
Hunter growled, then inclined his head, conceding the point.
“If no one knows about your secret life as Mirage, why would the school believe you need protection?” Korbin asked.
“I can answer that, too,” Gotthard said without looking up from his laptop as he typed. “Because…she’s not just Gabrielle Saxe. Just got a full report on her prints.”
She covered her face with her hands and groaned.
Gotthard read from his monitor, “She’s Gabrielle Tynte Saxe, heir to the Tynte dynasty, and she’s had two attacks on her life before she disappeared following her divorce.”
Carlos blinked. He’d known something was not just average about her, but her entire family was imperial lineage?
She was way up the freakin’ royal food chain.
“You told me there was nothing different or special about you.” Carlos waited until she uncovered her face to add, “When you tell a lie, it’s a whopper. Now we have even more reason to keep you here in protective custody.”
“No!” Her eyes rounded in panic. She jerked toward Joe. “I can get inside with one of your people…by tomorrow.”
“We’d be sending a civilian into danger and risking our people while doing it,” Carlos argued, not liking the way Joe was considering her offer.
“You’ll waste the best chance you have to get answers on Mandy and the other teens…and finding out who the Fratelli are,” she threw right back.
“Hard to argue with that,” Joe finally said.
“But I won’t help unless you make me a deal.” Gabrielle’s sable eyebrows lowered over a stubborn gaze. She rushed ahead before Carlos could shut her down. “I’ll do whatever is necessary to help you if you promise to look for Linette and free me once I’m through and you see that I’m not a criminal.”
Joe didn’t hesitate. “Deal.”
THIRTEEN
CARLOS STOOD IN the kitchen with his back to the rolling mountains beyond the cabin and leaned against the sink counter. He’d run out of arguments to prevent Gabrielle from going. The mission should be his only concern, but she had no one else to watch out for her.
“She walked into this.” Joe paced along the opposite side of the island as he justified the decision. “We’re just doing what BAD does best-capitalizing on resources and assets wherever we can find them.”
“Baby Face considered himself a white-collar criminal who didn’t dirty his hands and had never worked with Durand before. Makes me wonder why he was picking up Gabrielle on his own, and how did he find her?”
“All good questions, but Baby Face is dead so he can’t help us, and we can’t pass up this opportunity.” Joe paused and rocked back on his heels, arms crossed, thinking.
Carlos finished his coffee and placed the cup in the sink. He’d issued orders to the team, dispersing Rae and Korbin in one direction to get ready to leave and Hunter back to the IT to start processing information on the school.
Joe glanced over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps and voices coming up the stairs from the basement.
Gotthard appeared with Gabrielle right behind him, saying something about a secondary retrieval something or other. When they both entered the room, she fell silent.
“We’ve breeched the school programs.” The smile Gotthard rarely sported underlined the significance of their success.
“I need my laptop to check for messages from the school.” Gabrielle’s excitement flashed in her eyes, not as tired now that she’d eaten a sandwich.
“Why can’t you use ours?” Joe had put her with Gotthard to monitor her moves.
“My e-mail system is complicated and all my passwords are loaded into my laptop.” Embarrassment flushed her cheeks with rosy color before her lips curved. That’s when she glanced at Carlos and dimples showed up with the fairy smile.
Her eyes reflected a deep loneliness when her guard was down. Unremarkable in so many ways, but the dimples and smile rearranged her nondescript features into adorable.
Carlos breathed out a long, miserable sigh.
She was not adorable, dammit. When was he going to get it straight in his mind that she was a potential threat to American security? And people he cared about?
This woman had a connection to the Anguis she’d yet to explain to his satisfaction. Just as she’d been told earlier, Gabrielle was the enemy until proven otherwise. One who could be a danger to others.
Right. And he was the Easter Bunny.
Joe nodded at Gotthard. “Let her boot up.”
When she turned to follow Gotthard downstairs, Carlos said, “Gabrielle?”
She swung back wide-eyed with a look of fear as if she thought something had changed. “What?”
“We’re leaving as soon as you get an invitation from the school.”
Her relief reached out and touched Carlos. She moved as if to take a step toward him and caught herself, making him wonder what had been on her mind. She grinned. “Gotthard came up with a particularly nasty way to fubar the computers so they should be looking for me now.”
She hurried from the room before Carlos raised his eyebrows at her last comment. Did Miss Priss even know what the acronym fubar stood for?
Joe lifted his phone, which must have buzzed, and answered it, paused, then muttered something low that sounded like a curse and hung up. “Based on all the information you sent yesterday, we managed to track down the helicopter.”
“You found Turga’s pilot?”
“We caught up with him in South America. He made a fuel stop near Caracas and disappeared while the chopper was being serviced. The station belongs to one of Durand’s legitimate companies, and the pilot’s flight plan indicated Durand’s compound as his last stop. He may be lost to us.”
Carlos drummed his fingers on the counter, thinking. “That doesn’t fit Durand’s MO.”
“Why not?”
“At least it wouldn’t have fit at one time.” Carlos scratched his jaw. Joe and Retter, BAD’s top agent, knew he was Anguis, but not that he was related by blood. Sad to remember more about the ways his family killed people than anything else. “Durand wouldn’t kill or kidnap someone with a trail like that to his compound. He liked everything kept low profile, unless he really wanted to make a statement.” Like bombing the vehicle of a competitor trying to move into his territory. The explosion sixteen years ago took out a van full of female teachers just trying to help South America’s underprivileged.
Durand tried to explain the deaths on the bus as an unintentional accident.
Carlos disagreed, but in the end the teachers were just four more deaths he felt to his soul.
“So you think…?” Joe prompted.
“Whoever took the pilot might have been snatching him away from Durand.” Carlos scratched his chin, thinking.
“Another player in the mix.” The grim set of Joe’s jaw crept into his words.
“I’m betting the Fratelli are involved, maybe payback for losing Mandy, but that almost doesn’t fit either. Why the pilot? Why not have someone shadow Baby Face and grab Gabrielle if they knew about Durand’s plans? I wonder if whoever grabbed the pilot knows that Gabrielle is the informant?”
“Don’t know, but that pilot can finger you and Gabrielle.”
Carlos chewed on that, considering the implications and risks. “Maybe Gabrielle would be safer with someone else.” He’d tried to sound all business, to hide his lack of conviction. The idea of sending her out with anyone else dug under his skin and irritated him more than it should have.
“She won’t be any safer with someone else, but you’re going to be exposed with no immediate backup on-site, but I’d rather have you on this just because of your knowledge of the Anguis.”
“I realize that.” Carlos met Joe’s gaze that shared nothing. Guilt almost pushed him to tell Joe just how well he knew the Anguis,
but Joe and Retter knew as much as BAD needed to know. He’d told them years ago about how the Anguis soldiers were tattooed like him.
He just hadn’t explained the significance of the scar.
“The closest we can get anyone to that school is going to be half a kilometer away, which might as well be a continent away if things go to shit.” Joe drummed his fingers on the counter. “I could send Retter, but I had other plans for him.”
Carlos shook his head. “She’d never listen to Retter.” And the idea of Retter alone with her didn’t sit well at all.
“Not listen to him?” Joe smiled in disbelief. He clearly couldn’t imagine anyone denying his top gun and one of the most intimidating agents to come out of BAD. “Retter’s pretty intimidating.”
“That’s why she’d never listen to him,” Carlos explained. “Gabrielle runs hot and cold. One minute she’ll bite your head off and the next she’s terrified. If you snap at her at the wrong time, she’ll just freeze up.” It surprised Carlos that he was beginning to understand her fluctuating personality so well, but he did. She developed more backbone and attitude when she was exhausted, but catch her rested or just after eating and she was gentle as a kitten.
“I’ve got orders to cover a media event in a congressional hearing room that’s been on the books for the past five months. Basically, it’s a media blitz for the two presidential parties.” Joe’s long sigh telegraphed how much he hated expending trained agents he desperately needed in less threatened places right now. “We’re going to be stretched thin on manpower. Retter’s pulling together a team to take into Venezuela. I need him to find out who’s attacking their oil minister and fingering the U.S. as the money behind the hits before this oil crisis turns into an international conflict.”
Carlos held up his hand. “I’m on board. We’ll leave as soon as I can get Gabrielle packed and out of here.”
What had Turga’s pilot told Durand about him and Gabrielle? Carlos had to keep her safe, which was going to be a trick if Durand sent his guns after them. One more thing came to mind.
“So you’re going to let her go when we get back from the school?” Carlos was surprised, but glad she’d cut that deal.
Joe started toward the steps, then stopped and lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “I agreed to search for Linette and let her go once we were convinced she wasn’t a criminal. We’ll search for Linette because we would anyhow. But the minute you’re done in France, Gabrielle comes back here. I can’t just wave my hand and declare she’s innocent. We’re not the only ones looking for her. I had to cut a deal with Interpol to get her prints processed. They want her next.”
“WHAT DO YOU mean Turga’s pilot is gone?” Durand dropped the file he was reviewing and stared in disbelief. “What happened?”
Julio’s wiry body tensed. He gripped the large envelope in his hands tighter. “His flight plans to Venezuela indicated he would arrive in Caracas today. I had men in place to intercept him, but at his last fuel stop the pilot leaves his helicopter and no returns. Authorities are all over the airport right now. I think he ran from something.”
“Why?” Durand stood behind his desk, scratching the side of his chin.
Julio waved the envelope in exasperation and shook his head. “Have no answer, yet. Maybe he did no go willing. Maybe we learn more when we find the leader of the black-ops team from France.”
“Sí.” Durand studied that a moment, then asked, “What have you got?”
“More photos, better angles on the face of the man who led them, though the lighting was no so good in these.”
Durand took the photos Julio handed him and laid the shots across his desk. The last photo showed a four-person team of three men and a woman. The leader appeared to be Hispanic, raising the hairs along Durand’s arms, but the shot had not been full face.
He fingered the glossy photos, separating them four across. Vague images with the low lighting, but that one in particular made him look twice.
“Do you recognize him?” Julio pointed at one picture.
“Maybe, maybe no. From this angle, his eyes look familiar,” Durand muttered more to himself. Did he know this man? “Show these pictures around. See if someone recognizes him.” The man was definitely familiar, but Durand could not place the face right now. Soon he would have answers.
“Sí.”
“In the meantime, I want the person who dared to betray me and cost my men their lives.” Durand seethed every time he thought of his brother’s death. “We will set a trap and see what we catch.”
CARLOS SHIFTED IN his seat, caught between sleep and consciousness. First class offered more room for his legs and arm space, but nothing for stiff muscles and memories too dark and twisted to be mere nightmares.
He breathed deeply, trying to use this time to rest.
The subtle scent of a female swirled near his nose. He might have gone back to sleep at that point if not for noticing the arm draped across his middle.
He opened his eyes to find Gabrielle beneath his left arm, hugging him as she slept. Her chest expanded and contracted softly against him with each steady breath.
When had she lifted the center console and scooted under his arm?
From his vantage point it was hard not to glance straight down where a gold, oval-shaped locket had slid into the valley between the gentle swell of her breasts. Sure, an antique locket had drawn his attention. He lifted his right hand to cover his eyes, then propped his elbow against the aisle armrest. Everything about this mission was wrong or off-key.
Starting with Gabrielle’s being practically royalty. An aristocrat with a bloodline that could be traced all the way back to the thirteenth century.
Men had fought wars over women like her.
She might not be a runway beauty, but Carlos now understood why he’d sensed an inherent grace about Gabrielle.
And she was attractive, in an understated, natural way without all the fuss. He rarely met women who would go out in public without makeup or clothes in perfect order, but Gabrielle had changed from her wrinkled warm-ups to a pair of jeans and pink knit top without a peep of protest. She accepted the plain clothes as standard fare, then braided her hair and twisted the single length up on her head with a clamp.
No muss or fuss.
A simple yet elegant look on her.
She could dress and live like a queen with round-the-clock protection. Why didn’t she?
His mother-and that was stretching the definition-would never have forsaken a life of luxury to live in anonymity or moderation. Alena Anguis had considered herself royalty and expected everyone to treat her as such. For a while, Carlos and his brother had been the favored princes in the household, until Carlos realized how much blood the Anguis dynasty floated upon.
He uncovered his eyes. He stared at the sun rising beyond the window, trying to bury the painful memories back where they belonged. Forever forgotten. He hadn’t thought about his biological mother in many years, intentionally. The woman had cared more about the latest fashions and keeping her body perfect than children whose births cluttered her life. She refused to be soiled by a messy kid or to consider having another baby after Carlos’s brother. Pregnancy was an imposition she bore like a martyr.
Her obsession turned into bulimia, killing her by the time Carlos was ten.
His father, Durand, had sold his soul to the Salvatore family when he married Alena, only daughter of the powerful Salvatore cartel. Durand owed all he had gained to them.
When Salvatore withdrew his support of the Anguis upon Alena’s death, claiming she’d died from mistreatment, Durand declared war between the families. From that point on, Durand was determined to prove the Salvatore don had made a mistake in snubbing him.
For the bloodline of a spoiled princess, Durand turned every male in his family into soldiers for his personal war.
The only real mother Carlos ever had was his aunt Maria, Durand’s sister.
For her, Carlos would carry a secret to the grav
e that would likely send him to an early one. But that’s what a man did for the ones he truly loved.
His gaze settled on the woman clinging to him.
Mirage-Gabrielle-had passed on more information on the Anguis than any intelligence agency for over eight years. Carlos had to know what she knew. Had to know if there was any way she might expose his secret.
He’d treat her as a temporary ally, for now.
Gabrielle gripped his chest and started breathing in gasps.
A nightmare had her. Odd, but he was as sure about that as he was about what it would take to calm her before she began screaming.
He unclipped her seat belt and turned her until he could hold her face against his chest. Her rapid breathing indicated she was closing in on full panic. He whispered into her ear, “Wake up. Come on, baby, wake up. Just a dream.”
She trembled against him, her fear so real he could see it on her skin. God, he hated that.
He rubbed her back slowly and whispered again, giving her a little shake to break her away from whatever grisly images played through her captured mind.
Her arms had locked around him when he’d turned her to face him. Fingers clutched at his side. He hissed at the recent wound she’d grabbed and reached down to move her hand.
Slowly, her breathing evened out again. Before thinking better of it, he kissed the top of her head and continued moving his hand along her back and arms.
The flight attendant stopped next to him with a silent offer for the blanket in her hand. He nodded and smiled his thanks when she draped it over Gabrielle then moved away, checking other passengers.
Gabrielle peeked out between her lashes, not ready to admit she was awake. This was not where she’d been when she went to sleep. She remembered lifting the console so she could get comfortable, but not how she ended up in Carlos’s arms. Again.
His hand moved slowly up and down her spine. Her body preened under the comfort, refusing to break contact and turn away from what he freely offered. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was in the arms of a man who cared for her.
Whispered Lies Page 17