The Marked Star

by Vicki Hinze

  “Perfect,” he said. “In the middle of a five-mile run.”

  “Secure line?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “We haven’t yet cracked the code on Elle’s ring.”

  “We haven’t either, but I have reason to believe Elle’s father encoded the ring with plans to a new non-invasive system designed to neutralize troops on the battlefield, on airplanes, ships—places bullets can’t fire without causing a lot of damage.”

  Who’d reported that? Nick didn’t bother to ask. “Have you verified he’s working on such a system?”

  “Actually, Elle was working on it, before she left the company. He took over the project when she got the European tour. Guess he figured she’d be back to finish it herself until then.”

  Her getting that tour likely had convinced him she was gone from the lab for good. Nick borrowed a phrase from her. “Reality bites.”

  “Yeah. Guess he didn’t want to accept it.” He grunted. “I had no idea she was behind the system. I mean, the woman’s a star. But the honchos are glad he’s picked it up. If the development is successful, the system will be an amazing asset for us in the field. It doesn’t shoot, makes no noise, and it doesn’t kill.”

  It didn’t do a lot, which left Nick wondering. “What does it do?”

  “Totally neutralizes human targets for up to twelve hours.”

  Did it knock them out or what? “How?”

  “I have no idea, but they’re conscious and communicative, I’m told.” One sighed. “I also have no idea how Phoenix got the ring from our agents to return it to Elle. That’s caused quite a stir here with Hip Pocket.”

  He was raging, to be sure. Nick knows how that happened, but Hip Pocket leaving him and One flying in the dark… he and his insiders could figure it out for themselves. It wasn’t complicated. Phoenix is CIA and undercover. She infiltrated NINA years ago, and has been an essential asset at checking NINA’s missions. It’s never been beneficial to remove her. Omega One clearly wasn’t in that need to know loop, which seemed rather odd to Nick, but since he wasn’t, Nick couldn’t bring One into it. “How did Phoenix know where to find us?” The Lodge was supposed to be off radar.

  “We suspect she followed you with a simple tracking device. On the car or attached to something she gave to one of you—“

  “The flower. She gave Elle a begonia.” He’d known it was a warning and hadn’t bothered to check it for a device. Stupid mistake. Totally his fault.

  “That’s it, then.” One sounded happy to have at least that mystery solved. He didn’t like unanswered questions any more than Nick. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been wondering whose side Phoenix was on.”

  “Been there, done that.”

  “Any conclusions?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t dare to say anymore.

  “Okay, then,” One said. Clearly, he’d spun it out and decided if Nick didn’t trust her, he’d be reporting it. Which meant Nick did trust her. “That opens a whole new can of worms, then.”

  “What kind of worms?”

  “From what I’ve gathered—strictly under the table and outside official channels—NINA really wants that system. If their honchos know she had it and gave it back to Elle…”

  “Bad news, definitely.” NINA would kill Phoenix for that action… normally. But this situation wasn’t normal. “I think they got boxed into a corner, and they do know what she did.” Traps. Self-destruct. “I think they tried and failed to crack the code and feared destroying it by trying further.”

  “Destroying it?” One sounded worried. “What do you mean?”

  Nick hadn’t been through all of Howell’s work, but he had been over his company with a fine-toothed comb. The man had kept some things deliberately out of Nick’s reach—like the fact that Elle was an engineer and held multiple patents of her own on a variety of systems she’d developed. But he’d seen enough to draw some conclusions, and with her disclosures, to do so with confidence. “Howell—Elle’s father—permits dabbling with his encryptions, but only to a point. Hit it and cross the line, and you’re trapped. The encoded message self-destructs.”

  “You’re kidding me. He can do that?”

  “He has done it on many of his systems.”

  “So you think NINA hit the wall and knew it couldn’t go any further,” One said, then paused. “That would make them snatching Howell logical. They need him to open the encrypted vault.”

  NINA had snatched Howell? Nick’s stomach caved. Elle knew the man she’d spoken to hadn’t been her father. Did he dare tell Elle this? Could he not tell her? Maybe she already knew it—like she knew about the encrypted traps. “Possible,” he told One. “NINA knows Elle’s stashed here, and it was initially her system.” He followed what could be their line of thinking. “So they return the ring, hoping Elle can break the code?”

  “Maybe. Her design, after all. She might have coded it.”

  “I don’t think so.” Nick felt sure of it. She felt responsible for Jaycee and Lizzie. If the mother and daughter were in jeopardy, and the mother was, and Elle knew something that could help her, she’d do it. “But if she didn’t code it, then Howell did. Makes sense if NINA knows Elle is Glen Howell’s daughter and Howell knows they tried to kidnap Elle to coerce him into giving them the plans for the system in exchange for NINA leaving Elle alone.”

  “Not NINA,” One said. “But Howell and his wife are sequestered. That’s confirmed.”

  Their side, not NINA, had sequestered Howell. Surprise streaked up Nick’s back. “Where?”

  “That I don’t know. I’m not in the loop, remember?” His bitterness about that came through in his voice. “My source says the CIA snagged and stashed them at the Pentagon’s request before NINA could. NINA was reportedly on the verge of getting them so we interdicted. That was passed on to me inadvertently by a trusted source at the Pentagon who had no idea Hip Pocket had removed me from the need-to-know loop.”

  “Just like with Elle.”

  “Yes,” One admitted. “Source says we can’t risk Howell giving NINA the plans. He’ll do anything for Elle. Anything. And NINA knows it.”

  So they’d nixed Howell from having the opportunity and from being forced to make the decision. Where the CIA would hold the Howells baffled Nick. They normally functioned only outside the US.

  Which meant, for them to drop into this at all, the implications of that system had to be broad, deep, and potential consequences, beyond staggering.

  What NINA could and would do with the technology sent chills through Nick. And what they’d do to the Howells to make them give them technology did worse. Frightened him in ways he didn’t think he could be frightened. For them, and for Elle.

  “Gotta go. Keep me posted.”

  Nick heard the line go dead. Elle’s parents sequestered. Elle being set up as a pawn…

  Even in his darkest thoughts, he’d hated few things in life. But he hated NINA as much as he… no. No, he didn’t love. Not now, not ever.

  His chest hollowed. He sat down on the steps. What was he going to do about Elle? Was she being straight with them? She hadn’t been totally open, but not knowing who to trust could explain that. Except she’d said she did trust him.

  He rubbed at his eyes, weary of the emotional turmoil she aroused in him. He didn’t live his life on emotion. Turmoil, yes. It was a constant companion. But emotions? No way.

  At least, not until now.

  The door opened and Joe walked out onto the Lodge’s front porch.

  Nick sat on the steps, waited for Joe to settle on the step beside him. “Was the call with One that bad?”

  “I’m not hiding out. I’m thinking.”

  “Ah, figured that.”

  “Elle knew and held out on us.”

  “Yeah, she did.” Joe snapped up a little twig and studied it in the light from the porch. “Question is, why didn’t she tell us?”

  Nick glanced over. “No idea…yet.”

  “Mmm.” Joe wor
ried his lip with his teeth. “Well, don’t convict her just yet. I think if she figured it made any difference, she’d have spilled it out right up front. She’s just that kind of woman.”

  She was. Nick agreed with that. “She irritates the fire out of me, Joe.” Nick sank into a dark place.

  “Because...?”

  Nick growled his frustration, stared off into the distant trees. “She’s smart and sunny. How can someone in danger be like that?”

  “She wasn’t so sunny coming out of that box. Sam’s jaw is still sore from where she laid one on him.”

  Frowning over at Joe, Nick said, “You know what I’m saying. She knows she’s in trouble. She knows the man on the phone posing as her father wasn’t actually him. She’s worried sick about where her dad really is, but she still comes across calm and controlled and…”

  “Sunny?” Joe suggested.

  “Yeah.”

  Joe stretched out his leg, crooked his knee and leaned his arm on it. “She seems pretty normal to me. Strong, but then she’d have to be, growing up like she did. Maybe she seems so sunny because you’re so… not sunny?”

  It was a kind shot at diplomacy. “I know I’m grouchy and cynical, okay? I see the worst in everyone and in everything. That’s a perk in my job—and it’s worked for me in my life, too.”

  “Worked how?”

  Seeing no judgment only curiosity, Nick answered. “I’m not disappointed all the time.”

  “So you see the worst in people to avoid being disappointed by them?”

  “Yeah.” Didn’t everyone, to some extent? From Joe’s expression, apparently not. “When you expect nothing and get it, you’re not surprised.”

  “I hear a but in there.”

  There was one. “But Elle… I hear her laugh and it lifts my spirits. She makes me want to see…something else.”

  “Something not the worst?”

  “Yeah. Exactly.” Nick stroked his thigh, thinking. “It’s crazy, I know. Sets me up for a fall I know will come.”

  “How can you know that?”

  Nick pivoted and looked Joe right in the eye. “Because a fall always comes.”

  Joe held his silence. Laughter from inside filtered through the wall to the porch. Elle, Sam and Tim joking about something, and guitar music.

  Nick slid a questioning look at Joe.

  “Sam brought it. He thought Elle might like to play some.”

  Nick nodded.

  “You know, bro, I think she’s getting to you.”

  He’d rather cut out his tongue than admit it—even to himself, but truth was truth. “She is—and I hate it.”

  “You shouldn’t.” Joe waited until Nick looked at him to go on. “Her getting to you isn’t a bad thing. She’s a good woman.”

  “She lied.”

  “Maybe, or maybe she was just waiting to figure out the lay of the land to decide the time was right to tell. She deserves the benefit of doubt on that. The woman was snatched off the street in another country, you know?”

  “I know.” He’d had nightmares about it even when awake. NINA could have gotten her. That didn’t bear thinking about. “But she’ll leave me, Joe. Everyone always leaves.”

  “We didn’t.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Maybe she’s different, too.” Joe stood up. “Look, she could leave or not. But if she did, at least you’d have time with her now. You could enjoy that, Nick. And we’d all love to see you enjoy something other than solving risky missions. You’re overdue for some happiness, man.”

  They knew, and they cared. He would love a little happiness. The kind he saw in Mark and Lisa and Tim and Mandy. The kind Elle just seemed to have inside with no one around. Problem was, Nick didn't trust happiness. And if he did let himself feel it, how would he go back to life without it? He’d made peace with his lot in life a long time ago. The day his father moved and hid to avoid seeing him.

  Joe clasped his shoulder. “Give her a shot, Nick. It’s fair. You do fair.”

  “I don’t think I’m that brave,” Nick looked up at him from the step.

  “Nobody’s that brave. Relationships don’t come with guarantees. They come with leaps of faith. Sometimes you splat, sometimes you soar—and there’s no telling which it’s going to be.” Joe smiled, slow and steady. “But here’s the thing, bro. Either way, what a ride!”

  The door opened and Elle walked out, Sam’s guitar in her hand. “You finished with your business?”

  “We are,” Nick said, confused and a mass of nerves inside.

  “Great.” She came out and sat down in the porch swing. “It’s wonderful out here. Love this swing.” She settled in. “If it won’t bother you, I’d like to play a little. I’ve missed it.”

  “Awesome. I need to grab my tea.” Joe stepped inside and nearly collided with Sam and Tim. “Stay,” he told them.

  Elle chuckled. “It’s okay. Everyone can come out.”

  “Shortly. You go ahead,” Joe said. “I need to brief them.”

  Setting him up. That’s what Joe was doing. Brief them? Yeah, right. Nick frowned.

  Elle strummed the guitar and began singing a tender ballad. I Still Miss You.

  It’d been a big hit for her. Double platinum. Beautiful song, even if the longing in her voice did rip at his heart. Envy flooded him. Envy and the same resentment he felt every time he’d heard the song.

  But up close and personal, it sounded… different. Even more beautiful. And that catch in her tone… unique and haunting. She was getting to him all right. More like, she’d gotten to him. What did he do with all these feelings?

  He had no idea.

  When she finished, she stilled. “Did you like it, Nick?”

  “Yes. Since the first time I heard it,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “But I do have a question.” He paused, waiting for her permission to ask. When she gave it, he dared. “What man put that kind of longing in your voice?” He shouldn’t have asked. Would having someone specific to be angry at do any good? It never had.

  She didn’t seem to take offense. Actually, she seemed pleased by the question. That mystified him.

  Her skirt hem rustled. She left the swing and joined him on the step. “You did.”

  His heartbeat doubled. “Excuse me?”

  “I wrote that song for you, Nick. Right after you left without saying goodbye.”

  He’d never even considered it could be about him. The possibility hadn’t once crossed his mind. “Me leaving… that really hurt you, didn’t it?” He understood that now in a way he hadn’t before. The song in context had made it clear.

  “It did hurt—for a long time.” She smiled. “I know you thought I was a kid with a crush, but I wasn’t. I’ve never really been a kid.” She set the guitar aside, propped it against a porch post. “We’re not so different, you and me.”

  “Your parents loved you.”

  “Yes, but they denied me, too. I thought they were ashamed.” She smiled. “Like you, I’m an outsider. Always have been and always will be.”

  “Still, it’s different. You know they’re there.”

  “My father is there—when he can be. My mother, not so much. But I don’t want to talk about them.” She reached for his hand, clasped their fingers. “I cared about you then and I care about you now. For me, nothing’s changed except our geography. We’re sharing a location right now. But I could be on the moon and it wouldn’t change the way I feel about you at all. If after this moment, I never saw you again in my life, that wouldn’t change anything either.” She smoothed her skirt. “I know that doesn’t sit well with you, but it’s the truth, so you’re going to have to just get used to it. It is what it is, as you so often say.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I want to believe you, Elle.” Man, was that the understatement of the year. He craved believing her. “But I have so little to lose. I—I don’t dare.”

  “It’s okay.” She stroked his jaw, then borrowed a phrase he’d spoken to Lizzie. “I’
ll believe enough for both of us until you do dare. No pressure, no rush.”

  What did he say to that?

  Before he could decide, Elle leaned over and kissed his lips.

  Phoenix left the pawn shop, a front for one of NINA’s other projects, and heard her phone. She retrieved it from her handbag and paused near a tiny park sandwiched in between two buildings. Light from the busy street streamed in, reflected off the stone pathway and blended with the twinkling lights hung in the trees. Jackal. She depressed the icon and answered. “Yes?”

  “How are you, my dear?”

  “I’m fine. You?”

  “Busy,” he said, his voice warm and tender.

  “Enjoying the chalet?” Switzerland was wonderful any time of year, but that home was particularly lovely in summer. “Caring for my flowers?”

  “Of course. I enjoy being here more when you’re here.”

  “Thank you for that.” She smiled. This man had always had the ability to turn her mind to mush. And he’d been doing so for thirty years. “Everything going well?”

  “Johnson phoned again. I’m afraid he’s becoming a problem.”

  “What’s he reporting?”

  “He isn’t reporting that you’re in Panama City for an unknown reason.”

  “He doesn’t know why I’m here. Is there more?” She didn’t understand the reason for Jackal’s concern or the purpose of the call, not that there had to be one. He phoned at least once a day. Often more.

  “The problem is he’s elevated the nature of his concern. From mild mentions to straight-up warnings.”

  That wasn’t good news. “Warnings about what?”

  “Your allegiance.”

  “I see.” Anger churned in her stomach and blended with a healthy amount of fear. Since their daughter Mandy had married Tim, a former Shadow Watcher, NINA’s scrutiny on Phoenix had doubled. If it knew Jackal was Mandy’s father, neither of them would be alive. But more attention—warnings or mentions outside the chain of command—was the last thing she needed. Hawk likely would shut her down, and that created a host of challenges for her and Jackal within NINA and the CIA. “Thanks for alerting me, darling. I’ll rein Johnson in.”