by Jackie D.
“Emma?” Tyler said her name as if she’d already done so several times.
“Yes, sorry.” She turned all her attention to Tyler.
“Can you pull up the maps of Moscow? I think we should study the streets and their names. We need to familiarize ourselves with the area before we get there. Also, we’ll need landmarks and how different districts are divided. Whatever you have,” Tyler said as she pointed to the screen.
Emma did as she was asked, grateful to have someone as pragmatic as Tyler on her team. Emma tended to get lost in the minutia of tasks, often losing sight of the big picture. Yes, it made her good at her job, but it was also one of the reasons she struggled in other areas of her life. She hoped, and not for the first time, that she could learn something by being around these women.
Chapter Five
Dylan parked her car at the designated location under the Renaissance Moscow Hotel. She walked over to the keypad in the corner of the parking garage and entered her authorization code, waiting for the door to beep. Once inside, she walked through the underground tunnel that led to the CIA station operating under the Baker & Hughes building. If anyone in the Bratva were to check her location, it would come up as her being at the fitness center next door. But this only gave her about two hours to conduct any type of business she needed to handle, and the number of times she could visit needed to be limited. She couldn’t raise suspicion, and she’d still need to make an appearance at the gym itself, to be seen on the cameras.
Merrick didn’t bother getting up from his seat when she came through the door. “I just saw you, so imagine my surprise when you hit your transmitter. This better be good.”
She leaned against his desk and took one of the jellybeans from the dish on the corner, popping it in her mouth. “I’ve got a thief in the car, spent the last few months cutting up drugs. You could probably flip him. He’s going to need relocation.”
He pulled the dish toward him and took four red candies out, shaking them in his hand. “What do we want with a low-level thief? Does he have any other info? Has he seen any murders? Does he know where the pakhan lives?”
She pushed herself off the desk and started toward the data center in the back corner of their office. “That’s your job to find out. I can’t do everything. He’s in the trunk of my car.”
She knew the last part would piss Merrick off. He hated being told what his job entailed. That was partially why she said it. It wasn’t often that she could ruffle his feathers, and she loved doing it.
She slid her phone over to a young man hunched over his keyboard, examining several monitors. “Hey, Tony, can you scan my phone for me? I want to make sure it’s not being tracked.”
He glanced down at the phone but didn’t make eye contact with her. “That’s your CIA phone. It’s not being tracked. I’d know.”
Dylan did her best to hide her smile. She liked Tony’s no-nonsense approach to dialogue, even though some found him off-putting and brash. “It’d make me feel better, please.”
He plugged her phone into his computer. “Emma Quinn will be here in seventeen hours.”
She looked at him and waited for him to continue. He didn’t, so she was forced to ask a follow-up question. “Who’s Emma Quinn?”
His fingers streaked over the keyboard, clicking at a speed that didn’t seem human. A moment later, a picture appeared on the screen, along with a full bio. The woman staring back at her from Tony’s monitor was beautiful. She had sandy blond hair, pulled back into a bun, striking blue eyes, and a small birthmark below her left eye.
Tony nodded toward the screen, his fingers never leaving the keyboard. “That’s Emma Quinn. I’ve never met her, but we have exchanged messages via our encrypted messaging system for work purposes. She’s brilliant.”
“Are you being replaced?” Dylan asked, scanning Emma’s bio.
Tony looked confused. “No, of course I’m not being replaced. She’s coming here to work with you. Well, her and four other people, your type of people.”
“My type of people?” she asked and smiled.
“You know, they carry guns and like chasing people in dark alleys. Well, two of them do, anyway. The other two are computer analysts, like me, but not as good as me.”
So, this was the team she was supposed to be helping. She hadn’t gotten much information out of Merrick, as was his style, but maybe she could from Tony.
“Can you pull up their info?” she asked.
He thought about it for a minute and shrugged. “Special Agent Tyler Monroe, Special Agent Caden Styles, Analyst Brooke Hart, and Analyst Jennifer Glass.” He sat back in his chair. “You can read the rest.”
She leaned forward on the table, scanning the information next to their pictures. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t impressed. Still, she didn’t understand why they needed her help.
“Do you know what the assignment is?”
He unplugged her phone from the computer and handed it back to her. “Yes.”
She took the phone from him and put it in her back pocket. “Are you going to tell me?”
Tony shook his head. “I can’t. You know that. You’ll be informed of your assignment when—”
“When the agency deems fit. Yeah, I know the drill,” she said.
He nodded once and turned back to his monitor. “Be safe out there.”
“Thanks, Tony. See you soon.”
Merrick glared at her when she walked past his desk. “We took care of your car issue.”
“I knew you would.”
She went back through the tunnel and into the gym. She’d need to get on the treadmill in the far corner, directly in front of one of the security cameras. Running wasn’t her favorite workout, but it was the most efficient.
Dylan hopped on the treadmill and did her best to clear her head. As the speed increased, she recalled the information she’d read about the women. Her mind kept flashing to the image of Emma Quinn. Yeah, she was probably brilliant like Tony had said. But what Dylan couldn’t shake from her mind were those blue eyes. They weren’t cold, the way most people looked in their company files. Emma’s eyes seemed kind, almost welcoming.
Dylan increased the speed on the treadmill and shook her head. She needed to switch her train of thought because she was close now. She knew with a little more time she’d be able to flip Nikolai, and that would deal a devastating blow to the Bratva. That needed to be all that mattered. She’d worked too hard to be distracted by a beautiful blonde, regardless of her piercing blue eyes.
* * *
“Can I speak with you for a minute?” Captain Hart asked, looking a bit nervous.
Tyler closed her laptop and looked around, but they were the only people awake. She pushed herself out of her chair and followed him to the back of the plane.
He ran his hand over his chin and leaned against the bulkhead. “Is Brooke still upset with me?”
Tyler instinctively turned in Brooke’s direction. She could only see her feet, propped up on the edge of the couch. “I’m not sure this is a conversation you should be having with me, sir.”
He nodded. “I’m not trying to put you in an uncomfortable situation. I want to do right by my daughter, but I can’t control my wife’s reactions.”
Tyler studied his face and saw his sincerity. “She’s hurt. It’s going to take time, and you’re going to have to accept her for who she is. That means letting go of who you thought she was, or whoever you wanted her to be, and making room for the real her.” Tyler shoved her hands in her pockets. “She’s worth it, you know.” She nodded in Brooke’s direction. “She’s amazing, and if you two can’t get past your feelings, you’re going to be missing out on one of the best people any of us have ever known.”
Captain Hart leaned toward her. “She’s lucky to have you, Tyler. I mean that.”
Tyler chuckled. “I’m the lucky one, sir. Once you see that, you’ll be ready to get to know her.”
Tyler walked back over to the couch and
opened her laptop. Brooke leaned into her and rubbed her eyes.
“Everything okay?” Brooke asked with a yawn.
Tyler smiled at her. “Yeah. Go back to sleep.”
Brooke pulled the thin airplane blanket closer to her chest, and a moment later, her breathing became rhythmic and deep.
Tyler pulled out the small box she’d been carrying around for the last two weeks and opened it, wanting to look at it again. The ring wasn’t anything fancy. The band was made of white gold, with a solitary one-carat diamond.
“It’s beautiful,” Jennifer whispered from behind her.
Tyler turned to look at her, a little embarrassed that someone had been watching her. “It was my mother’s.”
“She’ll love it.”
Tyler leaned a little closer, not wanting to wake Brooke. “Are you sure? It’s not too simple?”
Jennifer smiled. “Have you seen the way she looks at you? She’d wear a gum wrapper if it meant marrying you.”
Tyler closed the box and put it back in her pocket. “Thanks, Jen.”
“When are you going to ask?”
Tyler shrugged. “When we aren’t in extraordinary danger, I guess.”
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Oh, God, don’t wait for that. If you do, it will never happen.”
“Ask me what?” Brooke asked from under Tyler’s arm.
“Nothing, go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up in an hour so we can keep prepping.” Tyler kissed the top of her head because no one was watching, and because she couldn’t help herself.
Chapter Six
Carol O’Brien looked out the window from her penthouse apartment. She could just make out the colorful tops of the Kremlin. She took a deep breath, uncrossed her arms, and plastered a smile on her face. Dealing with Roman Alekperov, the Russian oligarch, was always an exercise in patience.
She turned and faced her visitor. “I thought when you agreed to hide me, you’d put me in a subtler location, Roman.”
He scratched at his salt-and-pepper beard. “I own building. There’s no problem.”
Carol sat on the couch next to him and watched his eyes travel over her body. She allowed him a minute to take her in. “Roman, I gave you twenty million dollars. I should at the very least have security here, don’t you think?”
Roman laughed and shook his head. “Boyeviks all over building. Getting to you is impossible. Americans, always so untrusting. Relax, enjoy your new home. Let Nikolai know if you need something.” He stood to leave. “You should look forward to gala. It will be fun. Lots of food, dancing, and vodka. You have good time.”
“Hmmm,” she said as she walked him to the door. “See you then.”
Carol opened the encrypted laptop Roman had given her and started scanning the pages of the American news sites. As far as she could tell, the search for her was alive and well, but still focused in Dubai. She read dozens of think pieces on why she’d done what she had. Speculation regarding her fear of people of color, of the LGBTQ community, her hatred for the “other.” People needed to believe she was a monster; it helped them sleep better. They needed to believe hatred was easy to spot. They needed to be able to point to a specific characteristic and tell themselves that was the reason, that if they didn’t share that particular belief, they were safe. But like most things, the truth was far more complicated.
Carol had done things the right way her entire life. She did as she was told and waited her turn. Waiting gradually progressed from months to years to decades. It wasn’t until she took her place toward the top that she realized that was as far as they’d let her go. The men above her would keep her tethered to her spot, a beacon of false promises and lies they told children. You can do whatever you set your mind to. Bullshit. She’d made her share of questionable deals, traded votes for fundraising dollars, let people go without clean water to achieve more considerable backing from oil and coal. She’d said nothing as the men shook hands and made deals behind closed doors. She ignored the extramarital affairs of the so-called “family value advocates.” Hell, she’d even helped reelect a congressman who’d killed a sex worker during a night of particularly brutal sexual play. She’d thought she was putting a string of wins in her column, a column that would place her in line for the presidency. But when her time came, she was pushed aside for some no-name out of the Midwest and a bumbling idiot from the East Coast.
It was at this point that she found her people, her followers who would go to the ends of the earth for her. All she had to do was validate their belief systems. It started innocently enough, a few rallies, some backroom meetings, sitting through their church sermons. She found an energy bubbling under everyday life in America. Energy fueled with hatred, mistrust, and the belief that people were cutting in line in front of them. It was then that she realized hate was a better motivator than love would ever be. Anger forced people beyond limits that society deemed unconscionable. They knew the proverbial line; they simply didn’t care where it was. They wanted back what they’d felt was taken from them. They wanted people to see them instead of just looking past them. They were tired of hearing about the elites. Tired of being told they weren’t worthy. They were tired of the college degrees and high-paying jobs that were kept just out of their grasp. They wanted to matter.
So, she became their voice. She gave them structure, funding, and leaders to help them organize. She found people to develop websites where they could find each other and share their thoughts and feelings, without the input of the rest of society. She gave them the home and safety they’d been searching for all along. When she thought they were strong enough, she mobilized them. She gave them a purpose, a sense of being. She saved them. Her own beliefs didn’t match, but that didn’t matter in the least.
Luckily, her country spent over a dozen years focused on threats from outside their border. Security agencies weren’t paying any attention or sinking any funding into tracking their movement. They were easy to write off—extremists, loons, racists, homophobes. No one believed they deserved any real attention. The media and the government turned a blind eye when they started stacking police forces, school boards, and even local government commissions with people loyal to their cause. She changed the way they viewed themselves and the way the rest of the world saw them. The days of the white hood and burning crosses were long gone. These were community members, business owners, and people’s friends. It was incredible what a nice shirt and slacks could do for one’s image.
The wave started slowly. People sitting at dinner parties giving anecdotes about how their cousin had lost a job to an immigrant who was already receiving Social Security benefits. Having people write blog posts about how their children were being taught homosexual sex in schools and instructed how to pray to Allah. It didn’t matter if it was true. It was actually better that it wasn’t. They felt like they were privy to a world everyone else was too stupid to see. She made them believe that they were the insiders, and the rest of the lot was too blind to see what was happening right under their noses. It ignited fear and unease in communities. People would wave to their Mexican neighbors and then behind the cloak of the voting booth, put people into power who would send the very same neighbors back to their country of origin. Fear was an excellent motivator, and no one stoked the red-hot flame of fear better than her.
Of course, she’d made a few mistakes along the way, too. Michael Thompson and Nathanial Lark were two of those mistakes. Michael was so hell-bent on destroying a single Marine, Tyler Monroe, he almost tanked the whole operation. Then there was Lark. He could have been something special. But Lark was busy playing games when he should’ve stayed on task. Both of their failures had all but led Tyler Monroe and Caden Styles to her doorstep. Had she handled their duties herself, she’d be sitting in the Oval Office, instead of stewing in a country with no extradition treaty. She should’ve known better. She knew better than to send a man to do a woman’s job.
Roman could reassure her until he was blue in the face. She knew
the truth; she could feel it in her bones. Monroe and Styles were coming for her because it was personal now. But this time, she was ready. There would be no maiming, no toying, no kidnapping, no threats. This needed to be handled once and for all. Carol knew what their end game entailed: arrest or elimination.
Carol was no fool. She understood that simply killing Monroe and Styles wouldn’t prevent her home country from continuing to pursue her. But if she could get rid of them, she’d be able to buy herself enough time to disappear. It would take months to get a new team up to speed, and she’d use that time wisely. She wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. She could disappear and finally lead the life she deserved. All she needed was the right person for the job. She needed someone who could do what the others failed to do. Get rid of them. She was sure Roman or Nikolai could help her with her plan. Now, it was just a waiting game. It wouldn’t take them long before they realized she wasn’t in Dubai, and when that time came, she’d be ready.
Chapter Seven
Dylan left her car at her apartment and took the bus, then the Metro, and the bus again to make it to the address in Ostrov she’d memorized from Merrick. She did a double take when she arrived, unsure if she was in the right place. There was nothing but open grassy fields as far as she could see. She decided to walk a bit up the path, and she knew she was headed in the right direction when she came to an old rusted gate. It wasn’t the gate that signified she was at a CIA house of operations, it was the lock attached to it. The gate was so old and rusted it could be easily knocked down by a Prius, but the lock was new and slightly advanced. She turned the lock over in her hand, and a red light showed from underneath. She lifted it to her face, knowing that it was a camera, and the people on the other side would need to see her. A few moments later, the lock came unlatched, and she pulled the gate open.