by Stewart, Anna J. ; Sasson, Sophia; Carpenter, Beth; Jensen, Muriel
Alessa put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and nodded. He held up a hand in a “wait” gesture, then took off at a run. Luke and Alessa looked at each other in confusion. Luke put the money away. They watched as the boy went to an overflowing garbage can and rummaged through it before racing back holding a filthy plastic bag. When he saw Luke’s empty hands, his face fell. Luke brought out the stack of notes again. This time, the boy snatched the notes from Luke, put the wad to his nose, thumbed through the stack, then put it in the plastic bag. He grinned at Alessa and Luke, then darted away.
Shaking his head, Luke offered Alessa his arm and she took it. They made their way to the street and hailed a rickshaw.
“You think we were compromised again?” Alessa asked when they dismounted a few blocks from the apartment.
He nodded. “It’s highly suspicious that they reacted so violently to you. The house isn’t that secluded—I’m sure people walk up to the front door to sell stuff all the time. The fact that the guy pulled a gun on you right away makes me wonder whether Azizi was in the process of escaping when you showed up. It has to be one of our guys. You find anything in the phones or emails?”
She shook her head, her face neutral. He frowned. “Alessa, if you found something, don’t protect the team. If anything, today should be proof enough that one of them is the leak.”
She sighed. “Okay, there’s one thing I need to check out. I’ll let you know if it’s real.”
He raised his brows. “Alessa.”
“Just give me until tonight,” she insisted. “I’ll look into it when I’m on surveillance.”
Luke shook his head. “No surveillance shift for you tonight. I want you safe and recovering. You need to rest.”
“You’d better be kidding.”
He winced at the determination in her voice. This was not going to be easy.
“Alessa, I need to know you’re okay. How am I supposed to focus on the mission if I’m worrying about you?”
She took a sharp breath. “You have to get used to it, Luke. I’m a soldier on a mission. I’ll get dinged up. Yeah, my shoulder’s fractured, but I haven’t been through any worse than the other guys. If you can get out combat with just a few bumps and bruises, that’s a good outcome. You know this.” She took a breath, then softened her tone. “Even after you quit the army, I’ll still be inside. This is what our life will be like. You won’t be around to force me to rest or stay off a mission. I can’t have you strong-arming me anymore. You have to let me take care of myself.”
A deep ache settled into his chest. She was going to stay in the army, and he’d be home wondering whether she’d return. Just like his mother had all her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THEY ENTERED THE APARTMENT, and suddenly it seemed a little too small for the both of them. Apparently, Luke felt it, too. They didn’t know how to move around without bumping into each other. They had both decided to put their relationship on hold until the mission was completed.
Luke got a call. He’d already let the rest of the team know he’d found Alessa and instructed them to go back to their scheduled surveillance assignments. “I’m on my way,” he said.
“Rodgers needs me to check something out,” he told Alessa. “Stay here until I get back.”
“Yes, sir.” He walked out and she sank into the hard loveseat, closing her eyes. Luke’s expression when they’d talked about him leaving the army came back to her. He’d said the right words but there was clear doubt in his eyes. Did she really have a chance at a normal life? A house where she wouldn’t be afraid all the time. Where her life wouldn’t be filled with uncertainty. Is Daddy going to be in a bad mood when he comes home? Are those footsteps outside my room Mommy’s or Daddy’s? Are we staying home from school today because Mommy is in the hospital?
The army structure, the certainty of the day’s routine, had been so comforting. What if she couldn’t have both Luke and the army? She touched her lips, still full from when he’d kissed her. It’s worth it, for him. Things would be different once the mission ended. Wouldn’t they? It was hard now, with Luke as her commanding officer. He wouldn’t be ordering her around when she wasn’t reporting to him. Right? Or was she weaving herself a fairy tale again, like she had with Aidan? The way her mother had all her life?
She cleaned herself up and changed into fresh clothes, glad she had bought a couple of additional local outfits. Touching the pink outfit, she appreciated the softness of the cloth. She’d never been much of a girly-girl, choosing jeans and hoodies over dresses or skirts; that’s why she loved the army uniform. It was an equalizer. She was not the outcast because of her thrift store clothing.
Alessa had assumed that Luke would quit after this mission like he’d been planning, but that look in his eyes when she’d asked about him leaving the army was troubling her. She’d believed him when he said he was willing to become a civilian for her, but what if he wanted to stay? Was it fair for her to ask him to leave? Was she willing to do the same for him? The answer to that question frightened her.
As tired as she had been this morning, she was wide-awake now. Pacing the apartment, she tried to figure out how she could be helpful. They needed to rescue Ethan and finish the mission. Only then could things be settled between her and Luke and she could finally have some peace with what was happening between them.
A knock on the door startled her. She picked up her scarf and wrapped it around her head in case it was a neighbor. She looked through the peephole and sighed. Opening the door, she tried to paste an easy smile on her face.
“Did Luke send you to check on me?”
Boots grinned. “Of course he did. You’re the loose cannon of the team.” The amusement in his voice made Alessa smile.
He entered and she motioned for him to grab a seat. “Want something to drink?”
“I think I’m supposed to be making you tea.”
Alessa plopped herself on the couch. “By all means, then—a cup of tea sounds great.”
Boots began boiling water in a pan. That was how tea was made in Pakistan. They had watched a YouTube video in case a neighbor showed up and they actually had to be social.
“So how’s it going?” She stood in the doorway kitchen so they wouldn’t have to talk too loudly.
“Well, we’re throwing darts until we hit the target. We just need a break.”
Boots added loose tea to the boiling water plus milk and sugar.
They chatted about the details for a few minutes. Boots poured the liquid into cups, using a strainer to catch the loose tea. “We haven’t been here long, but I’m seriously craving a real cup of coffee.” Instant coffee was everywhere here, and the unit members had found it preferable to switch to tea than drink the freeze-dried stuff.
Alessa smiled. “We were worried about you. What happened?”
“Luke didn’t tell you?”
Alessa shook her head, feeling awful for lying to him, but she figured that Luke had sent Boots to her for a reason. For her to gather intelligence. To do the job he’d hired her to do. She realized with a start that he’d found a way to make her feel useful while still protecting her.
“I got separated from Rodgers and made my way across.”
It was the story he’d told the rest of the team, so she tried another tack.
“Just as well you didn’t have to suffer traveling with Luke. I don’t know how he got command of this unit.”
That got Boots. He smiled. “I like the guy, but he’s not Ethan.”
“Yeah? I love the unit, but I’m not sure I can deal with Luke.” Her stomach churned as she said the words but she kept her tone light.
“Give him a chance. I felt the same way, but I’m coming around.”
“How so?”
“Don’t get me wrong—I don’t agree with all the decision
s he’s made, but he’s got good instincts and I’m not sure Ethan would have done it better.”
Alessa’s heart swelled. She too had noticed that Luke seemed to be a natural at taking command. Which brought up another issue for her. Did she want to be with a man who was used to being in charge?
“I’m not so sure. Maybe he got lucky. He seems to be convinced Ethan is still alive.” She let that hang in the air.
“Ethan is alive.”
She scoffed. “Based on what? Luke’s gut?”
“I saw him with my own eyes.”
“What? When? How?” Alessa’s surprise was genuine. Luke hadn’t told her about this.
Boots seemed to realize that he might have said too much. He took a sip of his tea. “When I was waiting for the unit to get here. I didn’t just want to show up at the safe house without making sure everything was okay, so I surveilled the target and saw Ethan.”
“Does Luke know this?” Her stomach churned. While she was a natural at it, she hated lying. It was yet another thing she enjoyed about army life; all she had to do was follow the rules and she never had to lie about who she was or what she was doing. Until Aidan. It seemed her and Luke’s relationship was also full of half-truths. Was that what their permanent relationship would be like? If there was a relationship beyond this mission. If their feelings survived whatever it would take to complete this mission.
“Of course Luke knows.” Boots’s reply refocused her attention. All this time she’d been obsessing over finding out whether Ethan was alive so they wouldn’t be on a wild goose chase, and Luke had kept her in the dark?
“You trust him, then? I mean, after what happened to Ethan…” She left the thought hanging in the air.
Boots jumped in. “He wasn’t part of the unit when we got ambushed the last time, and neither were you. The three of us are the only people I trust.”
Alessa widened her eyes and raised her brows. “You think there are traitors in the unit?” Boots shifted on his feet. “You do, don’t you?” Alessa almost marveled at her own acting skills.
“I’ve said too much.”
“Come on, you said yourself that Luke and I are the only ones who definitely had nothing to do with the last mission. You need someone to talk to.” Boots seem to mull this over.
“You can trust me.” Alessa said softly.
Boots sighed. “This has to stay between us. You can’t even tell Rodgers.”
Why was Boots singling out Rodgers? Alessa nodded, even as her stomach twisted.
“I haven’t told Luke because, you know…”
“He has to act on anything you tell him. I’ll keep this between us. Maybe I can help you bounce around ideas.”
Boots seemed to warm to this idea. Alessa motioned for them to go into the living room. Alessa sat on the loveseat and Boots pulled one of the chairs over so he could sit across from her. His large frame dwarfed the seat.
“Okay, the whole point of the unit is to investigate leaks, right? So, no one can know where we are exactly. We made some mistakes with logistics last time. Rodgers admits it—he’s beaten himself up over using army assets to find the safe house. But even if someone knew where we were staying, it shouldn’t have been that easy to identify the mission and the target. There are at least a dozen possible things we could have been doing at the border. We even talked about doing two different missions and prepped for both. The only way for anyone to have known exactly what we were doing and the exact second we were doing it is if one of the unit members talked.”
“I see the logic in that. But who would do that—and why?” She bit her lip. She had thought about the problem quite a bit and had had trouble coming up with a motivation for any of the unit members.
“Dan is up for promotion. He wants to get into Special Forces. Badly.”
Alessa knew this. She and Dan had talked about it. “After his work here, he’ll more than make it, but if he gets caught being a traitor, he’ll be kicked out.”
“Unless he’s talking to someone who’s promised him the promotion.”
“Yeah, but Rodgers is also up for promotion and he also tried out for Delta.”
“He’s also on my list.”
“So you’ve ruled out Dimples?”
Boots shook his head. “He has three kids back home. I hear his wife’s having trouble making ends meet. He could be turned with money.”
Alessa held up her hands. “You’ve been keeping an eye on the entire unit. You have to be leaning toward someone.”
Again, Boots looked uncomfortable. “I don’t have hard evidence.”
“But you have a feeling…” She watched his face carefully. “Or you’ve noticed something unusual that by itself doesn’t mean much but when you put it in context with the mission going belly-up, it’s something.” His face twitched and she knew she had him.
“I’ve relived that last mission for months. Let me tell you what I saw without telling you who it was, and you tell me if it sounds suspicious.”
Alessa leaned forward, and Boots continued. “The last time we were here, before Ethan was killed, I saw one of our teammates talking on a cell that wasn’t one of the mission phones.”
“He could have had a phone to talk to someone back home, a loved one he needed to check on,” Alessa suggested.
“That was my initial thought, but then I saw the same guy poking around Ethan’s office—now Luke’s—back on post. He didn’t think anyone was in the training center, but I had left something in the locker room and had gone back for it. I noticed this on my way out. At that point Luke hadn’t taken over unit command so I had no one to report it to aside from Colonel Black Tag, and I didn’t want him to fly off the handle.”
“Maybe he was doing the same thing you were—retrieving something he left there or looking into what went wrong on the mission.”
Boots shrugged. “That’s why I haven’t said anything. Individually, it’s not a big deal. Even together it could be totally innocent.”
“What motivation does this team member have?”
“Promotion. You know how it is. Brown-nosing is a good way to move up.”
Alessa chewed on that. “That makes sense. Whoever is jeopardizing army operations in Afghanistan found out about the unit and somehow got a unit member to spy for them. When they found out the mission was to expose the very guy, they took Ethan out.”
“Except they didn’t, which makes this all the more mysterious.” Boots countered.
“They kidnapped him hoping for more information, maybe?”
Boots nodded. “And I think whoever the traitor is, he’s high up in the army. That’s the only way he could influence one of the unit members.”
“The only thing I don’t get is why one of our unit would betray our country. None of the guys strike me as someone disenchanted or upset,” Alessa said.
“Me neither. Maybe they don’t think they are betraying us.”
A thought struck Alessa. “When you guys went to the house I sent you to, where I got accosted, and saw it was deserted, did anyone react differently? I expect all of you were upset that we missed the target again, but was one of the guys a little off?”
Boots scratched his chin, stood and paced the room. Alessa watched him for several moments, holding the now-cold teacup in her hand.
“Only one. And he was the same one I saw snooping in Ethan’s office.”
“Who?” Alessa’s heart was in her toes. She had a feeling she knew the name even before Boots said it.
“Rodgers.”
Then there was a loud banging on the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BOOTS WAS ON his feet in a flash and went to the bedroom. Alessa adjusted her scarf and peered through the peephole.
“It’s okay!” she shouted and opened th
e door to Rodgers, who stood there with bags of food in his hand.
“Luke sent me to take a break so I thought I’d pick up some food for you guys.” Rodgers said.
Boots grinned. “Nice! Chinese.”
“Before you get too excited, it’s something called Manchurian chicken and Hakka noodles.” Rodgers said.
Alessa took the containers and opened them. “Close enough to General Tso’s and lo mein for me.” She tried to keep her voice light but it sounded strained. Rodgers couldn’t be the leak. She wanted to ask him, to confirm what he did or did not know. What was she going to tell Luke? And how could she betray Rodgers after he’d helped her with Julia?
They dug into the food, eating right out of the boxes.
“So you okay, or what?” Rodgers said, eying her.
“No more dinged up than you are,” Alessa responded.
They all laughed. Rodgers gave them an update on the surveillance. “That guard you knocked out woke up and Luke convinced him to tell us where he was supposed to collect his payment. The rest of the team is checking out that new location. I tell you, that guy can sell underwear to a nudist.”
“That’s why the ladies love him,” said Boots. “I can’t even get a date when I’m showing off my six-pack, and all that guy has to do is smile and women swoon. Parrino, how have you resisted his charm?”
Alessa didn’t miss the look Rodgers gave her. “Maybe I’m even better at charming than he is,” she said easily. Boots laughed but Rodgers’s tight smile told her that he didn’t believe it for a second. Her own smile disappeared.
They chatted easily while eating but Alessa sensed there was a tension between the two men. Maybe it had to do with Boots ditching Rodgers in Afghanistan. Surely Rodgers was smart enough to figure out Boots’s subterfuge.
The guys couldn’t leave at the same time. They had each taken great pains to make sure no one saw them and had to leave the same way. Boots left first, after sneaking a camera underneath the door to make sure no one was in the hallway or watching from across the street. This was no easy feat in a busy apartment complex. He had to wait several minutes before making the move.