A knock sounded at the door.
They looked at each other.
“Don’t answer that,” Colt mouthed.
“Wasn’t planning to,” Imani whispered back as she threw her backpack over her right shoulder.
Colt grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the sliding doors leading onto the balcony.
Another knock sounded.
He quickly opened the doors and stepped out onto the balcony, pulling Imani behind him. They were on the fifteenth floor, and he had no idea if Imani was afraid of heights or not. They needed to get to the adjacent balcony and perhaps leave quietly from the other hotel room.
Imani pulled her palm from his and stepped back.
“I guess I don’t have to ask how you feel about heights?”
She rolled her eyes. “This is not about how I feel about heights.” She frowned. “Won’t this be easier if we simply activate our shields?”
“You have a shield and didn’t stop yourself from being taken by Lippman.” It was his turn to frown at her, and his temper was fast rising.
“Not that we have time to discuss this now, but…”
The polite knock from before was now replaced with loud bangs on the door and an even louder, “Open the damn door!”
They activated their shields then and moved back into the room.
“There’s a mute button on your shield that allows only me to hear you. I can speak to you and you me without others hearing us.” Imani showed him how to activate the button on his wrist.
Colt opened the door and quickly moved away from the doorway. Six armed men rushed into room.
The men fanned out farther into the room.
Colt and Imani quietly walked out of the room and moved toward the elevator. There were men lining the hotel hallway and at the elevator.
Colt pressed the call button for the elevator.
Imani laughed softly at the confused looks on the men’s faces when the doors of the empty elevator car opened.
“They may have my car under surveillance.”
“If they don’t, they’re idiots.”
They entered the elevator. Imani stilled his hand from pressing the button that would descend the elevator and pressed the stop button instead.
“Shouldn’t we stay and see who they’re reporting to? We may not have another chance like this to see who is after me.”
“I will stay and go with them, but I want you out of here. I want you to safety.”
“We don’t have time to argue this point,” she hissed.
Colt stepped out of the elevator and pressed the descend button for her. “My men are on the way. They will get you to the airport. Wait for me at the plane. My men will protect you until I get there.”
“But—” The elevator doors closed.
Colt waited as the man who seemed to be in charge started rounding up the men, telling them to move out. He was with them as they all piled into the elevator. In his shield he saw that Imani was still lingering in the lobby of the hotel.
“By all that’s holy, if you don’t get your sweet ass outside, I won’t just beat your ass. I will lock you in our room for a fuckin’ week.”
“I am only trying to help,” Imani hissed. “You have eight men in the elevator with you, but there are six in the lobby here, another six in the parking area.”
“Go,” he growled.
“They have somehow left the hotel,” the man who Colt determined was the leader was telling someone on the phone. “I know what the hotel records show, but they were not in their room and his car is still here.” There was some silence as the man listened to whatever was being said on the phone. “Yes, we have his plane in view. He’s not getting away from us this time, sir.”
“You heard,” Colt muttered, knowing that Imani would’ve been unashamedly eavesdropping on his microphone.
“Yes, I heard and was also able to trace that call,” Imani reported grimly.
“Meet me at the plane.”
“What? You forgot that there are armed men already there waiting?”
“Do you know where our target is or not?” he growled. “The way that I’m feeling I don’t give a fuck if there are twenty of them waiting at the plane.”
“Innocent men, remember?” Her voice was gentle, as though trying to calm a beast. “Someone in authority is commanding them to commit a crime, and they have no idea that it’s a crime. We need to go the path of least resistance.”
“Are you sure of who it is?” He ignored her reasoning speech.
“Yes, I am,” she assured him with a bit of anger in her voice. “I remember him. He worked with my dad, but we can’t touch him. We need a plan to draw him out because he’s well protected.”
The elevator door opened into the parking garage.
Colt remained on the elevator as the other men got off. Spying Imani in the shield locater on the move, he went back to the second floor, got off the elevator, and met Imani in the stairwell, shaking his head at her attire. They’d been in such a hurry yesterday and this morning, and he hadn’t noticed that she was dressed as a teenager in jeans and a gray hoodie, wearing a backpack. He felt like an old lecher lusting after an underage girl. The only problem was that underage girl was his wife. He regretted more than anything not being able to take her on a honeymoon trip where he could spend all the time in the world with her. He’d thought he knew her, but every day he found out that wasn’t at all true. He found that fascinating. No one could get him hard as a rock, fascinated with her beautiful mind, and wanting to spank her disobedient ass at the same time.
“Tell me. Who are we searching for?” Since Imani had deactivated her shield, he did the same.
“Not here, we need to move.” When he didn’t immediately move to follow her, Imani looked back to where he stood, still in the alcove of the stairwell, staring at her, brooding. “Look, can you stop that macho crap for a second and listen to me?”
Colt pushed off the wall, moved toward her, grabbed her hand, and dragged her behind him.
“What’re you doing?” she yelled as he walked down toward the hotel lobby again.
He ignored her struggles and pulled her along behind him.
“They have eyes in the lobby! Are you crazy?”
He stilled and pulled her against him. “You told me that we needed to draw him out. Let’s make him think he can touch us.” He held on to her as he marched through the lobby.
“Did I mention that you’re nuts?” she whispered as they passed two of the soldiers, who didn’t react to their appearance.
“I don’t think you realize how much you look like a teenager right now. They’re expecting a man and his wife, not a man and his daughter.” Colt didn’t stop until they had reached the limousine parked in front of the hotel waiting on them.
“When did you call in your men?” Imani asked as he slid into the limousine to sit next to her. She glanced over at Mark, who was facing them in the vehicle.
“I called after we were threatened. It would’ve been foolish of me to ignore the motherfucker after he was nice enough to give us a warning.”
“Yeah, well, given the identity of the bastard who’s after us, you’d better start hiding. If he threatened your family, they’d better be hiding better than us. I still don’t understand why you’re headed to a plane that we already know is under their surveillance. Otherwise, they will surely be dead as he promised.”
“Are you going to tell me who he is?”
“Yeah, just as soon as we get the hell in the air and I can breathe a little easier.”
She followed in his wake as they arrived at the private airstrip, which had a sleek Gulfstream Jet ready to be boarded. “What happened to our surveillance?” Imani asked in surprise, as they didn’t encounter any hostility.
“I told you that these bastards are very accommodating in telling us their plans. I made sure they also felt welcomed when they came here.” Colt laughed at her
stunned expression. “I have a friend on board who has some information for us,” he said quietly as they started up the stairs to the aircraft.
“Welcome aboard, Colonel.”
“Thanks, John. Everything I requested is on board?” Colt asked, not really expecting any other answer but an affirmative.
“Yes, sir.” He tipped his hat and disappeared into the cockpit.
Colt smiled on seeing one of his former team members, also now an FBI agent, already on board the jet. Andrew McAllister served under him on one of his US Special Forces teams.
He stood on seeing him and saluted with a precision Colt expected from any well-trained soldier.
“Sir,” Mac greeted them.
Colt returned the salute and introduced him to his wife.
“Ma’am.” Mac smiled gently.
Imani gazed up at him, seemingly stunned as they all sat down in the soft leather seats. Mac was a big man, almost seven feet tall and built like a house. He made grown men back up nervously whenever he entered a room.
They all remained quiet until the aircraft was in the air, and then Colt nodded to him to proceed with his report.
“What were you able to find out, Mac?”
Mac looked at him hesitantly and then looked at Imani again and smiled as if apologizing before he spoke.
Imani returned his smile but still appeared uncertain about what to make of him.
“You’re Justine Price,” Mac stated softly.
“What the fuck?” Colt frowned at Mac and then looked to Imani to tell him off. However, when she didn’t deny it or even look surprised, he started to feel disoriented and tried to rein in his temper. “Care to explain what the hell’s going on?” he asked slowly. He was really trying to not lose his shit. “Who’s Justine Price?”
“Justine Price is one of my aliases. Given that I’ve had someone out to kill me since I was a kid, I had to develop a few,” Imani told him calmly as though she hadn’t just shifted everything in his world.
“So, who the hell did I marry?” he bellowed. He couldn’t help the instant feeling of betrayal when he wondered at what else she’d kept from him.
“You married me.” Imani frowned at him. “Justine is like my artist name. It’s the name I use as the owner of my aerospace company.”
“What?”
“You know that I work for JP Aerospace? Well, when they recruited me, I got irritated at how poorly the company was being run, so I bought it. I own the company.”
“What? You own the company but have an asshole like Marcus boss you around?”
“Well, technically, no one bosses me around. I remember Marcus telling you that none of them ever knew what I was working on. That’s legit how I run the company. And look at the benefits of no one knowing that I own the company. I get to be ‘undercover boss’ indefinitely.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Colt knew that his voice sounded both pissed and hurt at the same time, but he couldn’t seem to help his reaction. How could she keep something like this from him? How could she marry him with such a huge secret? He was more than stunned.
“When was I going to tell you something like this, Colt? I had no idea you were planning to ask me to marry you. Everything happened so fast, and up until our wedding, I wasn’t sure how much I could trust you. Not even Sarah knows about my other identities.”
“Is Imani St. John even your real name? Am I married to a real person or an alias?” His voice rose with every word he spoke.
“You’re being dramatic. I’m impressed.” She smirked. “I had no idea you could get dramatic.”
“Answer the damn question. Who are you? Are we married or not?”
“Imani St. John is my legal name, so, yes, we’re married,” she muttered. “As much as it pains me sometimes to admit.”
“Good, now you can tell Sarah that you didn’t marry me for my damn money. Because it seems that you probably have more money than I do,” he muttered peevishly.
Imani scowled. “I’m not wasting my breath with Sarah. It’s going to take me a long time to ever forgive her hateful words.”
“Well shit,” he muttered, looking disgruntled. “It was precisely because of her words that I want you to tell her.”
“Believe it or not, I no longer give a shit what Sarah thinks.”
Colt sighed. He was resigned to letting the women deal with their own problems. “How many other names do you have?”
Imani gazed at Agent McAllister as if she’d learned her lesson and didn’t volunteer any other information.
Colt also looked across to where the agent sat quietly. He narrowed his eyes at the slight smirk the agent had on his face. “God, no wonder you’re so good at your job. All you say is one sentence and people start to spill?”
Mac grinned. “Usually they’re not so entertaining while they tell it.”
“Bastard,” Colt muttered. “So, did you uncover anything more useful than my wife’s aliases?”
“There were three men working with her father before he was killed. Two of them are dead, and one is the Vice President of the United States.”
“Fuck, dead end then?” Colt had been positive they were on the right track, and if they found who had been working with Imani’s father, they would find who was after her.
“I wouldn’t quite say that, sir,” Mac said grimly.
“Are you implying that Vice President Spartan has something to do with this?”
“I’m saying that the VP is our prime candidate,” Imani grumbled. “I never really paid attention to my father’s colleagues, but the VP seems very familiar. It’s possible that he knows something.” Imani nodded.
“Damn, Imani, there’s nothing half measure about you, is there?” Colt let out a few more choice curse words before turning to Mac again. “How the fuck can we be 100 percent sure of Spartan’s guilt? And how the hell can we get Spartan without having half the U.S. Armed Forces after us?”
“From what I heard about Spartan, he’s a sadistic bastard. We don’t have to go after him,” Imani promised. “The thing is we have to expose what this guy wants while not allowing him to succeed in his evil. The current administration is very popular, and we can’t just accuse the bastard. No one would believe us.”
“How are we going to do that without giving him the formula?”
“I will definitely give him a formula. Spartan’s not stupid and would spot a fake a mile off.”
“You will show me first what this formula does before it’s handed to him. I can’t chance people getting hurt.” Colt’s mind was racing with the possibilities. Any slip-ups on their part and people would die. Spartan was a die-hard right-wing conservative. He was likely to have any number of conservative agendas and radicalisms. And then he thought of other possibilities. “You realize that there is a possibility that Spartan would still try to come after you to secure your services for other weapons, right?”
Imani smiled. “I guess it will be your job to dissuade him from such thoughts.”
“I’m glad you have such faith in me, wife, but it will help if we’re sure that Spartan’s our man and that he can’t harm anyone.”
“The men who came after you today were Secret Service,” Mac told him. “I think Spartan is getting desperate. Whatever the formula is, Spartan wants it badly.”
“Let’s just put it this way. If the formula my dad and those men made actually worked, it would make the nerve agents used in Syria look like a little irritant. This substance shrivels the body within seconds.”
Mac frowned fiercely.
Colt cursed some more. “What the hell were they thinking?”
“They had been trying to replicate the agent in order to find a cure. My father stopped the project when he realized that some of what they were doing had leaked out and Spartan might have been working with the Russians who’d become obsessed with the completion. My father deliberately withheld some of the ingredients from his partners onc
e he saw what the agent could do. There was no way my father would’ve condoned making such a weapon. And worse, making it for a hostile country like Russia.”
“Spartan must have some idea of what to expect in the formula. How can you give him a fake?” Colt wanted to know.
Imani laughed. “The formula that Spartan knows about is virtually harmless. The formula my father let them see would only cause a severe headache, nothing fatal.”
Colt turned to Mac. “How do we get this bastard?”
“Don’t pursue him. Let him come get you,” Mac drawled.
“That phone call earlier today was an act of desperation. Perhaps it was under his instruction, but I don’t think it was Spartan who made that call.” Colt thought back on the call and tried to remember every word spoken. Perhaps there was something in that call that would give him a clue as to what Spartan was planning.
Chapter Seventeen
“Once we have the girl, you can ask any price you want,” Edmond assured the vice president.
“Yes, as soon as we have the girl, I want Colonel Ragnarson killed. She has no other family, and I doubt his family will give two shits about her.” Vice President Eric Spartan paced the thick carpet of his office with increased excitement. He felt that he was finally close to his ultimate goal. Everything in his life had been planned. It started with his parents, who’d planned his childhood from kindergarten, private elementary school and high school, and the esteemed walls of Harvard. Even his wife, his two children, and small fluffy dog had all been planned. He was no scientist, but he’d volunteered to work on the new experimental drug with a renowned physicist because it would get his name in all the right places.
“The colonel will be here to bring her to us within the hour,” Edmond said confidently.
“No, he will not.” The vice president continued to pace and didn’t show Edmond anything he was feeling. Colonel Ragnarson was getting on his nerves with his persistence in protecting Imani. If Lippman had done his damn job, he would have the girl by now and Ragnarson would be dead. “The colonel has secured his family and thinks to lay a trap for me.” The vice president laughed. He was determined to convey a confidence he was far from feeling. “They actually think I will send men again. Well, I’ve learned my lesson. I will make them come to me.”
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