Lydia turned away from the computer and looked up at him so she could watch his face. “What happened exactly?”
“We called for room service, but our order had been screwed up. Drake went into the hallway to call back the waiter to get our right food. I was still looking at the dishes when the explosion happened. I think I was remembering Syria. I thought I had been wounded, there was blood all over me, but it was just marinara sauce. I couldn’t get it together for a while. When I finally remembered where I was a few minutes had passed. Drake was already rescuing one of the kids from the fire by the time I got there. I don’t know if I’d gotten there sooner if we could have saved one or two of the parents.”
“But you helped to save the other child, right?”
Clint nodded.
“Thank God for that.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Clint?”
“Lydia, that’s not who I am. That’s not what a SEAL needs to be. I’m not sure what the outpatient place is going to be able to do for me. If it can really get me back to where I need to be. Finn was out of commission for six months before he went to sniper school. We all thought he’d never crawl his way back.”
He looked so devastated. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him for all she was worth.
“Lydia, I’m trying to come to grips that it’s not the end of the world,” he said as he stroked back her hair. She tilted her head so she could look up at him. “Being a SEAL is a young man’s game. I’m getting up there. I’m thirty-three. I’d be looking at leaving the teams in a couple of years anyway.”
She never thought she’d hear him say that.
“But…”
Her eyes narrowed. “But what.”
“I’ve got to finish what I started with Drake.”
“This thing with Devon and the senator? I wouldn’t expect anything else. But you’re going to take into consideration the things you can and can’t do, right?”
“Lyd, SEALs work in teams. Drake is always going to need someone at his side, and it can’t be Finn. Finn’s career would be in jeopardy. Drake’s ass is already on the line, and now that you’re in on this thing, it just makes it easier for me to be playing hooky from the clinic. You can help with that, right?”
“Don’t expect me to only help with that. I’m going to be working all of our contacts, and doing a shit-ton on the comp. You know that, right?”
He bent down and kissed her lips. “Yes,” he kissed her again. “I know that.”
“Good,” she sighed. “I didn’t want to have to break your arm, or shoot you or anything.”
“Speaking of which, what about your assignments? Aren’t you back on the job? How are you going to square things with Eddie?”
“I’ve got seven new cases, and one special one I’m babying along. Three I’ve already closed, two are close to being closed. That leaves two more that will take some thought, and one special case that I’m doing on the side. I was hoping to pick your brain about that one, if you have time after the weasel-dick stuff is done. Do you think you will have time?”
“Always.”
“I’ve been working on breaking into your boy’s bank since you went to Kazakhstan. It’s been a little tough.”
“How many hours?” Clint asked.
“I’ve put in at least twelve, and I’ve had Melvin and Rylie helping me.”
He whistled.
“Come look at this.” She pointed to another trapdoor on her screen. “This is pretty sweet. It’s a trap. If I try to open it, it’s going to come back and bite me and totally blow up my hard-drive.”
“I have pants on, can I take a crack?”
She snickered. “Good pun.” She got up and waved him into the chair.
It felt good working with Lydia again.
He heard a buzzing sound coming from his carry-on. He jumped out of the chair to go grab the phone.
Lydia watched as he found the burner phone.
“Drake’s getting a WhatsApp. The Kazakhstan fire didn’t make it to the American papers, did it?” he asked as he fished out the phone.
Lydia shook her head. “I was tracking activity in Kazakhstan because you were over there.”
“Yeah, so must’ve Devon. Call up the WhatsApp program on your comp,” he directed Lydia.
She had it up by the time Clint had fished out the phone. They looked up when there was a banging on their door.
“Drake,” they said in unison.
“You better be dressed,” he yelled through the door.
Clint let Drake into the room. “We were just reading the message. Where’s Finn?”
“He should be here in another minute. I just woke him up.”
“Are you seeing this?” Lydia asked.
“No.” Drake answered, “I was too busy hightailing over to your room.” Clint and Drake moved to stand over Lydia’s shoulder.
“Fucking weasel-dick. Now I’m going to kill him.”
Lydia looked over her shoulder. “You’re not. We’re going to play him, and put him and the senator behind bars. From everything you told me, that would be a much worse punishment for this little piece of slime.”
“Nope, he’s going to die slowly.”
Clint closed his fist and hit Drake on his shoulder, hard enough to make an impression. “Stop talking about murder in front of the cop, you dumbshit.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Go answer it,” Clint told Drake.
Messages continued to come up on Lydia’s computer screen fast and furious. Obviously, wherever the prick-weasel was, he couldn’t talk on the phone.
“What is he saying?” Finn wanted to know.
“To sum it up, he’s assuming that Drake fucked up the hit on one of the bankers because of the explosion at the hotel. But somehow, he knows they’re both alive, and he’s pissed. He’s demanding to know where Drake is. He’s telling him to get his ass back to America because he has bigger fish to fry right now.”
“Lydia, ask him what the job is.”
It’s perfect for you.
What is it?
You just have to take one shot, and I burn the tape. Get to D.C.
When?
As soon as possible. When can you get here?
Tomorrow.
What time?
I don’t know. Tomorrow. Eighteen hours, maybe. What’s the job?
There was no answer.
“Shit, one shot means he wants you to play sniper.” Finn shook his head.
“Yep,” Drake agreed.
“If the Kazakhstanis are after them again, it has to be to lift the sanctions. This has to be about that,” Clint said as he frowned. “I’m going to start researching the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, see what’s up. I know Amir and Zangar were convinced that Senator Leonard could force the others in the group to go his way, but maybe there’s trouble in paradise.”
“Good, I have to work on my work-work,” Lydia said as she yawned.
“Anything we can help with?” Finn asked.
“Yeah, while Clint’s checking out the Committee, we have nothing to do,” Drake complained.
She bent down and picked up her backpack and put it onto the unmade bed. She pulled out three files.
“These two I’m having trouble solving. I’m going to work on these. But this one,” she tapped the top file. “I’ve been working on for two months. It would be great to have fresh eyes look over this.”
“What’s it about?” Drake asked.
“Alice is twenty-five, she has plenty of reasons to believe she’s being stalked, and it’s escalated. It’s been thrown into the round file because she insists that it is her former step-father.”
“Former?” Finn asked.
“Her mother died four years ago. I think that something must have triggered it, but I can’t wrap my head around it. I sure would appreciate anybody with a new perspective.”
Drake took the file. “We’ll look at it in our room. Why don’t
you get some more shut-eye?” he grinned. “Doesn’t look like you got a lot,” he said as he gave the bed a long glance.
“Shut up, Avery,” Finn groaned. “Ignore him. He just hasn’t seen Karen for too long and is suffering from envy. Let’s go.”
The two men left the room, then Lydia settled in an armchair to go over the two remaining files while Clint worked. She’d stop him in two hours.
26
Civics class was not something he’d enjoyed. Ever. But digging into the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and seeing just how much power they wielded was fascinating. Senator Leonard was certainly in the know about things, and through the years could have easily profited on some of this insider knowledge. But to actually sway the committee to do what he wanted, now that was a whole new level of dirty pool.
Clint read deeper into the sanctions that were currently stopping Kazakhstan from doing business with the US, specifically the banking business. He understood why this hindered Amir and Zangar in their world domination plans. So far the Secretary of State was the big roadblock to their plan. She’d been against the US doing banking business with her country for some time despite Kazakhstan’s improved score on the World Trading Economics Index. It was due to the ongoing investigations the British currently had going against some of the oligarchs in the country for their shady business practices. From what Clint read, nobody was out and out saying it, but it sounded like the country was rife with money laundering, corporate fraud, fraudulent accounting, and operating as a tax haven just to name a few issues.
“I think I know who the target is,” Clint said as he rubbed the back of his neck and stretched his back.
“Who?” Lydia asked.
“The secretary of state. She’s been against lifting sanctions since she got into that role, and Leonard’s committee is going to have to go head-to-head with her.”
Lydia closed her file and came to stand behind him. She started to massage his shoulders. “So, we’ve got fifteen hours to figure out how to implicate Leonard and Devon on an attempted assassination of the Secretary of State. Should be easy,” she said, tongue in cheek.
He picked up the hotel phone to call Finn and Drake. “See if you can get ahold of Conroy. He would be great to have looking into this for us. Also, would you mind booking us all tickets to D.C.?”
“I’m on it.”
They were all back in the suite by the time Conroy Lake called.
“Do you need more info about the ins and outs of D.C. politics?” he asked.
“Maybe, we’re not sure. It’s a long story,” Drake started.
“Give me the CliffsNotes,” Conroy said.
“After a mission in Syria, Drake is being blackmailed by a senator’s aide named Devon Cron. He wanted him to assassinate two Kazakhstani businessmen first because they were demanding payment after the senator wasn’t able to lift tariffs,” Clint started. “You with me so far?”
“Yep, easy enough,” Conroy said over the phone’s speaker.
“Drake and I went to Kazakhstan and met with these two, pretending to be businessmen who could offer them a shady deal. In the course of talking to them, they admitted the tariff deal went south but that the senator now needed to lift some sanctions against their country. Soon after, these two guys figured out our cover and tried to blow us up. We left town. Now Devon wants Drake to do a one bullet assassination in D.C. We figure it has to be the secretary of state since she’s the one blocking the senator from lifting the sanctions.” Clint took another deep breath to continue.
“I’m assuming money was in it, for the senator to lift the tariffs and now the sanctions?” Conroy asked.
“Yeah, both Devon and the Senator were going to make a pretty penny with the Kazakhstanis if either of these were lifted. My guess is they invested with them on a show of good faith, but it was a paltry investment as to what these two oligarchs are on the hook for,” Clint answered.
“Makes sense. The secretary of state, she’s a stickler for the rules. She will have wanted Kazakhstan to really have cleaned up their act before lifting the sanctions. I doubt they have. So you’re looking for ways that the senator and Devon can implicate themselves, right?”
“We already have Devon implicated on a phone call,” Drake said.
“You do?” Conroy sounded surprised. “He was that stupid?”
“It was over a WhatsApp call,” Clint explained.
“How’d you record it, a recording app?”
“Nope, directly off of WhatsApp. We have all his current chats monitored.”
“Lord save baby Jesus, you’ve cracked WhatsApp?” Conroy exclaimed.
“Yep,” Clint said with a smirk.
“That’s huge. I’m impressed.”
“Look, can you techies concentrate on the problem at hand?” Drake thrust his hand through his hair and glared at Clint and then at the phone.
“Sorry,” Clint said. “So Conroy, what do you think? Do you think the secretary of state is the target?”
“Absolutely. She’s due to leave the country in two days. She’ll be gone for three weeks. Your guy is going to want her offed before she leaves.”
“Do you know where Devon is going to tell us to make the hit?” Drake asked.
“I’d do it when she’s boarding her plane. With a sniper rifle, you could definitely do this outside of the airport.”
“Before that, we have to get the senator to implicate himself too,” Finn mused. It was clear he was deep in thought.
“You got an idea?” Lydia asked.
“We can flush him out if there’s money involved. Either the threat of losing it, or making more of it.”
“We need to set up a sting,” Clint said excitedly. “I have just the plan. Conroy, just how much security do senators have?”
“None, unless they request it because there’s a threat.”
“Perfect.”
“You don’t get to kill him, only capture him. Are we clear?” Clint asked for what seemed like the thirty-eighth time.
Drake rolled his eyes. “This is an actual mission, I know my orders.”
That had been twelve hours ago. In that time, they had used their time wisely. They had figured out how to divide and conquer. Clint and Finn would tackle the senator, Drake and Lydia would handle the weasel-dick.
Lydia had loved the story that Clint had provided to the Kazakhstanis, so she decided to capitalize on it. With a wicked-good special effects store and Melvin’s help, she set Clint and Finn up with the perfect way to handle the senator. Lydia had traced Devon’s credit card to the seediest casino in Baltimore known to mankind. The air wasn’t fit to breathe, and the slot machine handles were slimy to the touch. He was at the craps table…losing.
Lydia was in the crowd watching his efforts. He had a blonde and a brunette on either side of him. She’d bet anything that they were paid companions.
The guy was throwing money around like it was water. How in the hell was he doing that if his money was tied up with the Kazakhstanis? Not for her to figure out. What mattered was that they finally found him.
And it was time to squeeze the little prick.
When Devon had lost almost all his money, he grinned like it didn’t matter and gave the croupier a big tip and had the nerve to shove chips down the dresses of the two women. Ick. Ick. Ick.
The guy then went over to a blackjack table and pulled out another wad of cash. Dammit, they didn’t have time for this. When he dumped it on the table, with the ladies standing behind him, he got another big pile of chips to start playing. Lydia looked at her watch. They had this planned down to the minute. Devon needed to be in his room in thirty minutes to take a call, so enough with the gambling already.
Lydia looked around and found exactly what she needed—a three-quarters full Mai-Tai cocktail in between two slot machines. When she got closer she saw a cigarette butt floating in it. She winced, but it would do the job. Dressed in a tight top with a Victoria Secret bra that had the ladies pushed
up to her chin and a red wig, Lydia swayed slowly toward weasel-dick’s blackjack table.
She saw the spot next to him open. She stood behind it as if considering whether to play or not as the hand was dealt. Dammit, Devon was winning, he’d never leave. Yep, time for action.
Lydia pulled at her minuscule cross-body purse, and in the process spilled the Mai-Tai all over the front of Devon Cron.
“Hey! Look what you did, you dumb bitch.”
“Mister, calm down,” the dealer said.
“My suit is ruined.”
The blonde found some napkins and started dabbing at his white shirt. He shoved her hand away as he glared at Lydia. “Get the fuck out of here,” he yelled at the blonde.
“What about me?” the brunette asked.
“You too!” Then he turned on Lydia.
“What the hell are you going to do about this? Not only is my suit ruined, I had a winning hand. Now they’ll have to cancel the bet.”
She looked at the dealer.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She easily made her escape while Devon gathered his chips.
As soon as she was mixed in with the crowd of people she headed for the hotel elevator. She punched the number for Devon’s floor. When she knocked on the weasel’s door, Drake let her in.
“He’s coming?” Drake asked.
Lydia grinned. “Oh yeah, and he’s not going to be happy to see me. Put your mask on. Have you practiced your Russian accent?”
“Da,” Drake winked at her. “Love vodka, borscht and caviar.”
“Passable.” She watched as he put on a harlequin mask. Hopefully, weasel-dick would be so scared that he wouldn’t notice Drake’s size and put two-and-two together.
He pointed to a chair that had seen better days for her to sit in. “Finn checked in. They’re at the Senator’s house.”
Drake positioned himself behind the door. When the hotel room door opened, he grabbed Devon around his neck.
Her Unbroken Seal: A Navy Seal Romance Page 20