by Bianca D’Arc
“I’d watch village trucks. It sounded like at least one of their men was on the inside. If you see a village sanitation or landscaping truck show up, watch them very carefully and be ready to catch them in the act.”
Lina nodded and gave him a lazy salute as he went on his way, still on his quest to find Hannah.
*
As luck would have it, Lina observed a pickup truck painted with the village’s seal and clear identification that it was part of the grounds keeping department. It drove right through the police barricade that had been set up to keep non-official vehicles out of the parade zone. There were plants in the back, and when the groundskeeper tried to plant not only a flower in the first giant pot, but also a pipe bomb, Lina’s men closed in on him.
They took him down easily and quietly. No fuss. No muss. And, most importantly, no civilians alerted to a problem. The truck was driven away quickly and quietly by a very brave bomb squad unit member and taken directly to the county’s bomb disposal range, which thankfully, wasn’t too far away. Once they got off the parade route, some of the squad cars peeled off and escorted the village truck swiftly on its way.
Lina looked around and wondered if that was all. The satisfaction of a successful hunt filled her, but something was missing. It felt almost…incomplete. Lina left her squad to do the cleanup and went sniffing around on foot, checking the parade route top to bottom one more time, on her own.
*
“I wonder what that van is doing there?” Hannah asked, pointing to a van marked with the village crest and the words Water Department on the side.
It was parked on a side street with its back doors open and a little tent obscuring the fact that it was over a manhole, and the manhole was being opened. Hannah could see under the bottom of the flimsy tent, which didn’t quite reach the ground.
Hannah turned the corner onto the deserted side street and stared hard. Something definitely wasn’t right with that van. Then, it came to her.
They weren’t just planting bombs in the roadside planters. They were going to put them under the manhole covers too. Damn. If they got into the sewer system, they could plant anything they wanted anywhere along the route.
Hannah ran to the van and ripped away the little tent. They had the manhole cover halfway off, but she’d made one major miscalculation. There were three of them, to one of her.
“Shit.”
Carter caught sight of Hannah just as she was disappearing around a corner. Her disguise was pretty good, but he knew the shape and feel of her body now, and there was no way to hide her luscious curves and elegant, athletic physique. Lulu hung back but then followed hesitantly behind Hannah. Carter swore and broke into a run.
He turned the corner just in time to see three men square off against Hannah, who had dropped back into a fighting stance. The men were laughing at her and making derogatory remarks in their own language about the feeble female who thought she could fight. What they talked about doing to her once they subdued her made Carter’s blood boil.
He saw Lulu and slowed to tell her to run for help and ask for Lina Goodwell, FBI. Wisely, Lulu took off running back the way they’d come. Now, Carter just had to get Hannah out of trouble. By the time he reached the fight, they’d already started feinting against Hannah, but she was well trained and a good fighter. She could hold her own for a little while, but three against one were bad odds.
The terrorists had their backs to him, so he was able to come in with a flying kick to take down one man right away. He squared off with another while the third kept on Hannah. While the first guy lay on the ground, dazed, the odds were evened, for a bit. Carter positioned himself back to back with Hannah, and they set to work.
The enemy were skilled fighters who fought dirty. Carter was equal to the task, but he worried about Hannah. Like most people who learned martial arts, she’d likely been trained in a civilized dojo setting. He wasn’t sure if she would be aware of the dirty tricks her opponent might pull. He spared a glance or two in her direction, but the man he was fighting took most of his concentration. He really was a superior fighter, which made Carter rethink the level of this terrorist cell. They had better-than-good training, and even though they’d been a sleeper cell in this country for years, they’d kept up with their skills.
The action was lively enough that Carter had lost track of the first man he’d knocked to the ground. It was only when he heard the distinct metallic sound of a hammer being cocked that he realized losing track of that guy had been a big mistake. Carter turned slightly toward the van, and there he stood. Dirty and dusty, but with a very lethal weapon in his hand, trained on Hannah.
“Give up or the girl dies,” the man said in perfect English.
Carter raised his hands, keeping a wary eye on his opponent and everyone else involved.
“Let’s not be too hasty here,” he said, striving for calm, even though he was breathing hard from the fight.
“Get down on the ground,” the gunman ordered. Carter was in a no-win situation. He knew he couldn’t trust these guys. No matter what he did now, unless something drastic changed, he and Hannah were in big trouble.
Pretending to comply while hesitating as long as possible, Carter went through the motions of backing off. What he didn’t realize, until the hole appeared in the gunman’s forehead, was that until he’d moved, Carter had been blocking Lina’s shot.
True to her past abilities, Lina drilled a hole in the gunman’s head from twenty yards away. It took a moment for the man to fall, by which time, Carter had figured out what had happened, and he was re-engaged with the enemy he’d been fighting all along. Hannah, too, was fighting her man and holding her own.
Carter glanced down to the corner and saw Lina heading their way at speed. She certainly moved fast when she wanted. Something about her clicked in Carter’s brain at that moment, and everything he’d experienced in the past—all those inexplicable moments in Lina’s presence that he couldn’t explain—suddenly made sense based on his recently-acquired knowledge.
Lina was a shifter of some kind. Had to be.
“Need some help here?” Lina asked, startling the man Carter was fighting enough that Carter was able to get in a knockout punch to the jaw. The guy spun around with the force of Carter’s fist and dropped to the ground like a rock.
When Hannah’s opponent saw Carter coming, he tried to run, but Lina was on him, cuffing his hands before anybody knew what was happening. Yeah. She was definitely some kind of shifter. No normal human female moved that fast, or had that much power.
Carter went back to the guy he’d knocked down and zip-tied his hands and feet before turning back to find Lina making Hannah’s acquaintance. The women seemed respectful of each other. Whatever attraction Lina had felt for him years ago hadn’t translated to any sort of jealousy, judging by the looks of things. Carter was glad. Lina was a nice person, in addition to being a crack shot and one of the good guys. Now that he suspected she was also a shifter, he definitely wanted to keep her friendship. After all the weirdness that had happened in his life lately, it was good to have at least one friend from his past that he might be able to be honest with.
She’d also be a good contact for the unit if they ever needed to get information out through less than official channels. Carter would have a talk with Hal about Lina when he got back to base, for sure.
“I think I stopped them before they could get down into the sewer, but it wouldn’t hurt to have someone check, just to be sure,” Hannah was saying to Lina when Carter joined them.
“You’ll also want the bomb squad to take custody of this van,” Carter said in a low voice, pointing to the interior.
“Holy crap.” Lina’s face paled, but anger sparked in her eyes at the pile of pipe bombs clearly visible within the back of the van.
“Those are IEDs, right?” Hannah asked, also pale and breathing a bit hard from exertion and adrenaline.
“Got it in one, Sergeant,” Carter replied, subtly letti
ng Lina know that Hannah was military. Lina looked at him and nodded once. Message received.
“Can you handle the rest of this?” Carter asked Lina point blank.
She looked around, assessing the situation. “Yeah. I’ll call my team. We’ll mop this up.”
“Great. Because I’m not here,” Carter told her, putting on his sunglasses, which had miraculously survived the fight in his pocket unscathed. “I never was.” He bent to pick up his baseball cap and dusted it off on his thigh before putting it back on. He smiled at Lina and put his arm around Hannah’s shoulder. “You okay, champ?”
“I’m fine,” she told him, though he knew she’d taken more than a few hits during the fight. Still, she wasn’t bleeding, or limping, and she wasn’t cringing too much. She’d probably be all right until they could get to Rick for a real assessment. Hannah turned to Lina and nodded. “Thanks for your timely help. I thought we were done for, but that shot was just amazing.”
Lina looked down, shaking her head slightly. “Glad I made it in the nick of time. Next time, Carter, we’re going to have to coordinate our moves a little better than this.” She had the ghost of a smile on her face as she looked up at him.
“If there is a next time—and I feel like there probably will be, the way my life has been going lately—I’ll be sure to do that. Good to see you, Lina. My C.O. will be in touch, I’m sure.”
“I look forward to it,” Lina answered easily.
At that moment, his cell phone rang, and he excused himself to dig it out of his pocket while Lina looked more closely inside the back of the van, and Hannah stood by, still catching her breath.
He said few words, listening closely to the short message. Hannah looked at Carter as he ended the call, and he nodded.
“That was the last of them,” he announced softly. “We got them all.”
Lina looked at him sharply. She’d heard his words and walked the few steps back to rejoin them.
“Good. I’m going to sit for a minute,” Hannah said. “You two talk. I just want to take a breather.”
“You okay?” Carter asked, immediately concerned, but Hannah waved him off as she walked a few yards away and sat on the curb.
He realized she had probably figured out there were things he might want to say to Lina in private, and she was giving him space. Hannah, once again, was showing her sensitivity. How could he not love this woman?
The L word didn’t scare him. Not anymore. Not after all they’d been through and how much he’d realized his life would be empty without Hannah in it. She was the missing piece he hadn’t realized he’d needed until he’d found her.
He saw Lulu come around the corner down the block at that point. She started walking toward them a bit hesitantly, but she was definitely on her way to meet them. Whatever he was going to say to Lina, he should probably say it before Lulu got within earshot.
He spared a last glance for Hannah, sitting on the curb a few yards distant. She looked okay, just a bit winded and maybe a little bit in shock. He’d take care of her, but he had to leave things on the right note with Lina first. He decided to talk fast.
“You know, I’ve learned a bit about the wider world since I last saw you,” he said, gauging her reaction. “Have you ever heard of a Navy Commander named Kinkaid?”
“Possibly,” Lina said after a moment of hesitation. Oh, yeah. She’d definitely known about Kinkaid.
The name clearly meant something to her, but she wasn’t revealing much. She was cautious. He could respect that. If she really was a shifter, as he suspected, then she had every right to be wary. Her kind had managed to keep their secrets for centuries, if Kinkaid was to be believed.
“The thing is, we’re stationed on his base right now. There’s a reason for that,” Carter went on, feeling his way. “The call I just got? That was from a seer.” Lina’s eyes narrowed. “That’s how I know we won’t have any more trouble today.”
“Reliable?” Lina asked, surprising Carter with her easy acceptance of his claim.
Hot damn. She knew what he was talking about when he called Jeff a seer, like Kinkaid had. Carter had to be right about her. She had to be a shifter.
“I trust him with my life. He’s never been wrong yet,” he replied immediately and Lina nodded. “Thing is, if you ever need any…help…or special intel, you should probably talk to Commander Kinkaid. He can connect the dots between my group and anything you need to know. On home ground, you know our hands are tied. Legally, we really can’t operate on U.S. soil. But that doesn’t mean we stop being who and what we are. We can help, but we need to work through others, for now. We don’t mind giving you the credit. We don’t need accolades, just to know that we’ve done what we can to protect the innocent.”
“Noble,” Lina replied after a moment, putting a great deal of respect into the word. “I’ll look up this Kinkaid and open a channel of communication. If he vouches for you, well, we’ll take it from there,” she promised.
She wasn’t saying anything to confirm she was as he suspected, but he’d given her the contact name so she could have him checked out. Maybe, after she talked to Kinkaid, she’d be more trusting. Time would tell. For now, he was content to have laid the groundwork.
She held out her hand, and he shook it. “You were always a special guy, Carter, but I knew we weren’t meant to be.” Lina looked over to where Hannah was sitting. “Your lady is formidable. I’m glad you finally found your mate.”
That last word struck Carter as odd. Like it had some kind of deeper meaning. Maybe it did to Lina’s kind. Carter made a mental note to ask the younger, more approachable, Kinkaid about it, if he got the chance. In the meantime, Carter had to check on Hannah and get her out of here before Lina’s team showed up.
He joined Hannah after saying goodbye to Lina, and they made their way down the block.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hannah wasn’t sure how to explain any of this to Lulu, but when they caught up to her, halfway to the corner, Lulu just reached out and pulled Hannah into a big hug. Hannah was bruised, but the hug from her overwrought best friend felt good. When Lulu backed off, she had tears in her eyes.
“I always knew you were a badass, but I’ve never seen you in action, Hannah. I was peeking around the corner and caught the end of the fight. You’re amazing. Thank you for doing what you do and being the kind of person you are, who doesn’t let bad people get away with doing bad things.” She sniffed and turned to Carter, enveloping him in a surprise hug as well, while Hannah smiled at his shock. “You, too. I didn’t see much, but you guys were awesome.”
Lulu backed off, and Hannah made the formal introductions. “Lulu, this is Carter. He’s the guy who stayed with me in the mall after that…um…incident.”
“Oh, so we’re back to speaking in code?” Lulu shook her head and gave Hannah a grin. “Okay, well, then. It’s nice to see you again, mystery man Carter. I haven’t heard all that much about you, though I do remember you taking my best friend to lunch the other day. After what I just saw, though, you should know I am duly impressed.”
Carter grinned at her. “Nice to meet you officially, too, Lulu. Hannah’s mentioned you more than a few times.”
“So, do you think the parade will go on as planned?” Lulu asked. “My nephew has his little heart set on it. I’d hate to see him disappointed, but I also want it to be safe.”
“I think we can assure you that the threat has been neutralized. Everybody should be okay from here, especially with the heightened police presence watching over everything,” Carter told her as they walked around the corner and joined the light foot traffic on the street. They cleared the area just as a dark SUV—filled, no doubt, with Lina’s team members—went around the corner. “The parade will go on as normal, and there shouldn’t be any further problems.”
“Thank God,” Lulu whispered. “And thank you both, for making it happen. Things could have been a lot different here today.”
“Do you want to stay and watch
the parade?” Hannah asked her friend. Her bruises were starting to complain, and she wanted to get a shower as soon as possible.
“Yeah. I’m going to stay. You two go ahead. I know you probably have things to do. Reports to write. Whatever.” Lulu waived her hands. “I’m going to do what I’d planned from the beginning. I’m getting myself a large coffee and sitting in the window of the coffee shop until my nephew’s group marches past. Then, I’m going back to my sister’s with the kid and having pizza with them for lunch.”
“That sounds like a great way to spend the day,” Carter told her. “We’re going to walk back to my bike and get out of Dodge, if you don’t mind. We have bruises to check out and, like you said, reports to make. It was nice meeting you, Lulu. I’m sure we’ll see each other again in the future.”
Carter offered his hand, and Lulu tugged him into another hug, but he didn’t seem to mind. After letting him go, she hugged Hannah again, and then, she took herself off to that coffee shop she’d mentioned while Carter and Hannah began walking down Main Street toward wherever he’d parked.
“Who was on the phone?” Hannah asked Carter after a few minutes of walking silently.
“Jeeves. He and Rose saw what went down, and they were able to confirm we got them all,” Carter told her. “It was like Rose said. If you hadn’t come here today, half the cell would have gotten away with their van full of those things. Nobody was looking for that water truck or worried about the manholes, though they should have been. Heads might roll in the water department after this. They should have had someone watching for that kind of infiltration.”
“Maybe the guys we fought were the ones assigned to that task,” Hannah mused. “They were water department employees, after all.”
“Hmm. Yeah, that’s a possibility, too. There’ll be a full investigation. I trust Lina to get to the bottom of it, whatever it was.”
“You knew her from before?” Hannah tried not to be jealous, but then again, they hadn’t given off the former lovers vibe to her. Maybe they’d only been friends.