by C. J. Miller
He turned his head. “Stop that.”
“You’re bruised, and your ear is bleeding,” she said.
His ears were ringing, but they would stop. “I’ll look at it later.”
He helped her onto the bike and then mounted it. It was a short distance to the safe house. He circled the block twice, ensuring he wasn’t followed. The safe house was a temporary holdover for the night. Kit would change hands many times to lose any trail connecting her to her final destination: a supersecret military base. Griffin hadn’t been told the location. From what he’d understood, few knew it existed.
Five more minutes and he could finish this job. Kit was alive, and that was how he would remember her. The beautiful, feisty hacker in the red dress. When he stopped in front of the safe house, he helped Kit off the bike and let her lean on him as they took the stairs to the back door.
Kit removed the sweatshirt and extended her hand to him.
“Keep it,” he said. He didn’t need it and she seemed to be more comfortable having it.
“Thank you,” she said. She knotted the sleeves around her waist.
He knocked once on the door, and it opened a couple of inches. “It is a truth universally acknowledged...” the voice said.
Griffin finished the quote. “...that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
He guessed Kate had picked the quote. Since she and Connor had married and were starting a family, she believed that their operatives were destined for the same happiness. Griffin had tried to tell her that happiness came in many packages, not all of them involving a spouse and children.
Griffin’s life had been made better by a woman, but most relationships ended with deep unhappiness. Even Beth, whom he had loved with his whole being, had broken his heart when she’d died.
The door opened all the way.
He set Kit across the threshold. “She needs shoes. She has an injury to her foot, and a doctor should look at it.”
The man inside nodded. Griffin didn’t recognize him, but he didn’t know every operative in Connor’s network. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Good luck to you,” he said to Kit.
She nodded once, sadly. “Goodbye, brute.”
She didn’t know his name, but by this point, it didn’t matter. It was probably better that she knew nothing about him. He didn’t want her searching for him via the internet and exacting revenge. Griffin sincerely hoped she would realize she was in danger and he had only been trying to help her.
“Don’t be a flight risk,” he said.
She stared at him. “Can you make sure my family is okay?”
It wasn’t part of the job, but he couldn’t say no. “I’ll check in.”
“Will you get me a message if anything is wrong?”
He nodded once. “My boss will know where you are.”
As he returned to his motorcycle, he couldn’t drive away. Leaving her bothered him. He didn’t get emotionally tied to his missions and he felt connected to her. Usually, he didn’t think about people he worked with past the ending of a mission. Emotions had no place in his world.
It was her eyes. They were the most expressive eyes.
He started his bike and then a small detail, one easily overlooked, hit him. A sick feeling swamped him and he instinctively checked his gun.
It suddenly registered that the man who had greeted them at the door had had a tattoo on his neck. A spear tattoo that was a sign of Incognito.
With the press of a button, Griffin sent an alert to Connor to let him know the mission was not going according to plan. Griffin was up the back stairs in seconds. He kicked in the door and rushed inside. They could have slit her throat. Left her for dead. Any horrible ending could have befallen her, and it would be because of his mistake.
An image of Beth flashed to mind, her dead body lying on sterile metal in a morgue, and Griffin fought to control the sadness and anger. Beth’s death was why he didn’t work protective detail. He was best at extractions. He couldn’t keep his wife safe. How would he keep a stranger safe?
“Kit!” he called, panic rising inside him. The panic drove him, sharpening every sense.
Silence. They had already fled the house with her or killed her. He heard a car engine outside.
Griffin cursed his stupidity and raced for his motorcycle. He climbed onto it. A navy sedan was driving down the street, and hanging out of the closed trunk of the car was his sweatshirt.
They had Kit in the trunk of the car. She had to be alive. He wouldn’t accept that she had been killed. Incognito wanted her alive, and they had no way to know if she would cooperate yet. From what he knew of the other victims, it had been several days from the time they went missing to the time their bodies had been found. No explanation given. The West Company suspected they had been punished for not providing the answers Incognito wanted. They had been loyal and had kept their mouths shut about the Locker.
Kit could be destined for that same fate. She knew more than most about the project. The other two leads on the project were insane and medically incapacitated, and the West Company was searching for them, as well. That left Kit in the hot seat.
Griffin raced after them. His bike caught up to the car. A man leaned out of the back of the car and shot at him. He swerved his bike. He couldn’t return fire at this distance. He couldn’t risk Kit getting hurt.
He sped ahead of the car and then slammed to a stop thirty yards past the sedan. He pivoted and pulled his gun, aiming at the driver’s head. A trained sniper, he could make the shot, but he could also be hit head-on by the car as it veered out of control.
One shot. Two. Clean through the head. The car skidded and crashed into a vehicle parked on the side of the road. If Kit was hurt...
Leaving his bike, Griffin ran to the car. He killed the other two men in the vehicle before they could exit, their punishment for kidnapping Kit.
He opened the driver’s side door, shoving the dead man to the side, and popped the trunk.
He lifted a very frightened Kit from the back of the car.
She was shaking and had a welt on her head. “Did you see the sweatshirt?”
An intentional message and a sign of her faith in him. “I did see it. That was quick thinking.”
“I hoped you would realize they were bad,” she said, curling her arms around his body and laying her head on his chest.
A strange sensation swept over him. He didn’t hug people in the field, but Kit needed him. He didn’t pull away.
“Did they say anything to you?” he asked.
“They want me to break into a system I built,” she said.
That was in line with what the West Company knew of their motives. “I know.”
“I can’t. I don’t think anyone understands. When we built that system, it was not hackable. It is not hackable. Even by the people who built it. We designed it to be unalterable and uncontrollable by any one person. It’s intelligently designed world-class technology. It changes with cybersecurity advancements and keeps pace with new viruses and exploitations without human intervention. Who is planning to hack the Locker?” Kit asked.
“Incognito.”
She drew her eyebrows together. “Oh. I’m familiar with their processes and their attacks in the cyber world. But how is Incognito finding people who worked on the project? We used code names, and our real names were never to be revealed.”
“Looks like something went wrong. Someone somewhere made the connection,” he said.
“Bank payouts. Initial hiring documents. That data was supposed to be destroyed,” Kit said, terror in her eyes.
Griffin understood the fear. He had underestimated Incognito and Kit had almost paid with her life.
* * *
Kit had voluntar
ily spent a year of her life confined to an underground military base. She was familiar with their processes and protocols, but she didn’t want to return to a military base of any kind. The fake lights they had used to replace sunlight, the restrictions and the sense of being closed in had been persistent. Kit had needed to lie a lot that year, too. She had told her family she was traveling overseas and couldn’t return home. Her sister offering to pay for her flight or to fly out to visit her had been brutal to turn down. It was as if Marissa had known something was amiss and had wanted to confirm.
Kit had first been recruited to work on the Locker out of graduate school. The project had sounded exciting: build a cybersecurity supercomputer, working with the most advanced technology and the world’s best computer scientists and engineers. It had seemed like a great opportunity. But the reality of being cut off from the outside world had worn on her. The work had kept her busy seven days a week, but she had been depressed.
Her rescuer had received instructions and had taken her to a military base. As the copter landed, it was pitch-black outside. Without her phone, she was disoriented about the time and place.
“This is the safest place Connor could arrange on short notice,” Brute said.
Kit stayed tucked close to Brute. Her brain hadn’t caught up to the events of the night yet. She was physically tired, but her thoughts were racing. “Where are we?”
“I can’t tell you,” Brute said.
“I’ll figure it out,” she said. Eventually. Would she be confined for long? Would Brute leave her? A couple of hours ago, being away from him was all she wanted. Now she was filled with fear. Men were gunning for her, and a classified project was no longer a secret. How many people knew?
They disembarked the copter and ran across the tarmac to a nondescript tan building.
“We won’t be here long. This is a stopover until more secure arrangements can be made,” Brute said.
“We? You’re staying with me?” she asked. It was a relief to hear.
“My orders have changed. Until my boss can find someone to take over for me, you’re stuck with me.”
Being stuck with him sounded good, too good. It dawned on her that she was developing a crush on her kidnapper. Or had he saved her? Kit didn’t know how to judge him. He was working with the military, but that in itself didn’t mean he was to be trusted or that he was one of the good guys.
Two men in army fatigues escorted them to a sparsely furnished room with two cots and barred windows high on the walls. The walls were gray, but not in a supertrendy, freshly renovated way. In a dull, depressing, covering cinder blocks way. At least the room was not underground.
The fatigues worn by their escorts were her first clue to where she was. An army base within a twenty-minute copter ride from the Los Angeles area.
“Can I get a change of clothes?” she asked. Her dress was torn, dirty and uncomfortable. She was cold and longed for sweatpants to match the hoodie Brute had given her.
“You hate that dress, don’t you?” he asked.
“I feel like a stuffed sausage.”
“You don’t look like one,” he said.
It was something. The compliment made it hard to stay mad at Brute, especially given that he had saved her twice that day. He had a gruff manner, but he was looking out for her. Without him, where would she be? In the hands of Incognito, no doubt.
“I’d love something comfortable and warm,” she said. What they’d have access to would be limited, but they could issue her a pair of military sweats.
“She also needs shoes and a doctor,” he said.
The men saluted and left to acquire the items they had requested, she hoped.
Her foot was throbbing mildly. “I almost forgot about my foot.”
“Let me look at it.”
She sat on one of the cots, and he knelt on the floor in front of her, setting her foot on his knee. “It doesn’t look good. Needs to be cleaned and dressed.”
He propped her foot on the cot and took a seat on the other one. He looked tired. The red welt on his face was turning a pale yellow. He was unbearably handsome with his piercing green eyes and the slight cleft in his chin. His steely demeanor was contradicted by the warmth in his eyes.
“Are you in pain?” she asked.
He rolled his neck, stretching his spine. “It’s manageable.”
What level of pain would be unmanageable for him? She had worked with military men who had seemed incapable of registering pain. What about the injuries she couldn’t see?
The soldiers returned with a stack of the requested supplies, and a medic entered the room behind them.
The medic examined her foot. “This needs to be cleaned,” he said. “I’ll take you to the infirmary.”
Kit stood, the pain shooting up her leg. She winced. Brute stood from his cot and lifted her into his arms as if carrying her across a threshold. “Lead the way, Doc.”
The medic brought them to a brightly lit room with a patient bed in the middle and medical supplies on the shelves around them. The process of cleaning her foot was excruciating. Kit wanted to cry, yet Brute had to have worse injuries, and he seemed calm. She thought of something else, something other than the pain in her heel.
She couldn’t watch the medic work so she stared at Brute. He was looking at her foot, but he lifted his gaze and their eyes met.
He intrigued her. More than muscle and brawn, he was smart. Not smart in a nerdy, tech-savvy way, but he was definitely street-smart, taking in details. Despite the intense time they had spent together, Kit didn’t know his name. When she had worked on the Locker, she had been trained not to ask names or for details of someone’s life. This man knew Shade. She hadn’t been active online in the circles where Kit floated, and internet rumors indicated Shade had gone to work for a white hat organization. Had Shade gone to work for the same company Griffin worked for?
The medic was applying ointment and bandaging her heel. “You’ll need to take it easy on your foot. Try to stay off it and give it a chance to heal. After you bathe, put on a fresh bandage.” He handed a box of bandages and tape to Brute.
She hopped off the table and held up her hand as Brute approached. “I can walk. It feels much better.” It didn’t. It was aching. At least she had the confidence that it was clean and treated.
After walking for a few minutes, Kit gripped Brute’s arm, using him like a cane. They were escorted back to their small room.
When they were alone, she sat on the cot, propping up her foot. “Could I use a phone to find out how my family is?”
“No direct contact. We don’t know whose phones have been compromised. I’ll call and request information on your family,” he said.
“When can I talk to them?” she asked. She wanted reassurance they were safe and unharmed in the melee.
“Not yet.”
“Who do you work for?” she asked.
“I work for the West Company.”
Kit inhaled. She had heard of them. Never met or worked with one of their operatives—at least, as far as she knew. After another secret government spy organization had crumbled under corruption and criminal charges, Kit had heard rumors that the West Company had taken over for the defunct agency.
Of course, it wasn’t like the West Company had a website, and government officials denied its existence. Before now, Kit had only read rumors about it.
“Shade works for them?” Kit asked.
“Shade is married to the head of the West Company,” Brute said.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“I’ve been authorized to explain this to you. We want to earn your trust. Taking you from your sister’s birthday party probably didn’t go a long way to winning you over,” Brute said. “We haven’t decided how we’ll spin your disappearance. It’s
already hit the news, thanks to your sister’s fame.”
When Kit had worked on the Locker, contact with her family had been limited and controlled and monitored. Kit had felt like a prisoner. The precautions were for her safety, but they had felt like chains around her neck.
Her family would be worried about her, but they would forgive her. She would be released soon. The government couldn’t keep her here against her will. She had a life. Her work at the florist. Her apartment. Her online life. Why did that now depress her? No one except her mother, brother, sister and boss would have known she had gone missing.
Brute dialed his phone and checked in with someone, presumably at the West Company, and then handed her the phone. “Connor West is the lead of the West Company. He is on the line and available to answer questions.”
Kit took the phone from him, feeling a mix of awe and disbelief. “This is Kit Walker.”
“Is there anything we can get for you?” Connor asked. Behind the strength in his voice, she heard kindness.
She didn’t require much, and she would be home soon. “I want to know if my family is safe. I want to be informed as the situation changes.”
“They are safe and I will let you know if anything changes. I’ve assigned an operative to each of your family members to ensure their safety while we work on this situation,” Connor said.
“What will you tell my family about me?” Kit asked. She didn’t want to put them through any stress.
“We’re discussing our strategy. Your family knows you’re safe. We want your family to be reassured, but we don’t want to alert the men looking for you that you’re alive or give clues to your whereabouts.”
When she had left the Locker project, she had known this was a possibility. She had signed and agreed to so many rules and disclosures and confidentiality statements making it clear that despite her precautions, her future was in jeopardy. She had made an effort to put distance between herself and the Locker, but apparently not enough.
She wrapped up the call. She had no control over the situation. No phone, no computer, no access to the outside world, and she hated it.