Dangerous in Action (Aegis Group Alpha Team, #2)

by Sidney Bristol

  Isaac walked into the elevator, Felix’s last words still nagging at him. What was he getting at?

  “You want to say something? Then you need to speak up.” Isaac turned toward the pretty boy and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “You’ve been glued to our asset’s hip since we picked her up is all.” Felix turned his head, not meeting Isaac’s eye.

  “You mean I’ve been doing my job?”

  “Kyle might have tasked you with keeping an eye on her, but did he mean while she was showering, sleeping, whatevering?”

  “You got a problem with it?”

  “We seem to be split fifty-fifty on whether or not she can be trusted.”

  “All the more reason for one of us to be on her at all times.”

  “If that’s what you want to tell yourself to help you sleep at night, fine. Just seems risky to me.”

  Isaac balled his hands into fists.

  He and Felix were of a similar height and build. Isaac was pretty sure he could land a solid knockout punch on the guy before Felix bounced back. A conflict between the two of them would put them a man down, and they needed all hands on deck at the moment.

  The elevator dinged on their floor and Isaac stepped out first.

  Two figures loitered in the hallway, suitcases in hand.

  “Do I even want to know how you made it up here without a key?”

  “Nope,” the woman replied. She smiled, the expression still a little foreign on her face.

  “Nice to see you, Luke.” Isaac slapped the black man’s hand and swiped his keycard with the other. “Welcome to our tower.”

  He pushed the door open and held it for the couple. Tanya hovered in what passed as their kitchen, no doubt making coffee. One of the security team had come through for Isaac and brought him a nice, fresh bag of strong grounds he thought she might like. In stressful times like these it was the little things that helped them all cope.

  “Abigail, Luke, thanks for coming so fast.” Kyle closed in, shaking hands and slapping shoulders.

  “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but not under these circumstances.” Abigail turned and her gaze locked on Tanya.

  To Tanya’s credit, she didn’t miss a beat. Her hands were steady pouring the coffee, and she didn’t bat an eyelash. She’d certainly pulled herself together a great deal since they’d scooped her up out of that garden.

  “You must be Tanya.” Abigail crossed the floor to the end of the kitchen island.

  “I am. Coffee?” Tanya offered the first cup to the other woman.

  Abigail took it and inhaled deeply.

  “Is that cardamom?” she asked.

  “It is. I added it.”

  “Nice touch.”

  Abigail smiled and Tanya seemed to relax a little.

  Isaac could only stare, keenly aware he’d just missed something very important.

  “Great, everyone’s here. Can we circle up?” Luke said from the dining area.

  Abigail turned and joined her husband at the head of the table, his laptop already out.

  Isaac closed the distance between him and Tanya under the guise of helping himself to the coffee.

  “What was that about?” he asked.

  “You think the same Mossad agents who trained me trained her. If that’s true, it’s a man who always drank strong Israeli coffee.”

  “I see.”

  Isaac’s family weren’t religious, but they did have deep Jewish roots. He was very familiar with Israeli coffee and the spicy flavor. It hadn’t occurred to him that something so simple might be a clue to her true identity.

  Things were so much simpler when all he had to do was save the girl.

  “You want to lead this or should I?” Luke placed his hand on Abigail’s back.

  “I think I can cover things a bit faster.” Abigail turned her gaze on Tanya. “Usually we would have this conversation without you and then bring you in, but we’ve got such a short amount of time to work with that it’ll be easier to do this all at once.”

  Isaac edged closer to Tanya so their shoulder’s bumped. He couldn’t shake the nagging sensation that this was all bad news and she’d need a shoulder before they were done.

  Tanya gripped the coffee cup and stared at the projector screen. There was a miniature version of herself doing laps in her mind, screaming for help. She inhaled a deep breath and put that part of herself aside. Compartmentalize. She’d allowed herself to fall apart, and Isaac had caught her, but that chapter was done. From here on out she had to be part of the solution.

  “I’ve been on the phone for hours working every contact I still have to confirm or deny Tanya’s story.” Abigail braced her hands on the table and looked around at the men. “What I’ve dug up leads me to believe that she’s telling us the truth. Can I confirm that? Not yet, but in two hours I have a meet with a contact who likely holds the key to every shred of information we need.”

  Tanya’s knees went a little weak.

  She’d played the role of criminal and accomplice for so long that she’d felt like she’d never get to be herself again. This woman, Abigail, if she could give Tanya her life back, she’d owe her a debt that could never be repaid. And that didn’t begin to touch on the goal of stopping Orlando.

  “Let’s start with what we know.” Abigail straightened and gestured at the laptop.

  Luke clicked around a moment before the image of a man and woman filled the wall.

  “This is Robert Ellis, the man Tanya says is her handler. He has been involved on numerous joint ops. His wife hasn’t been to work in almost two weeks. Her employer thinks she’s sick and in the hospital, but there’s no record of her being admitted. Robert just left Epping with tickets booked to Bath, but they were not used. If I were to guess, someone got to Tanya and her partner through Rob, using his wife. Now, where is Robert now? What is he up to? How is he involved?”

  “Orlando has a...disturbing tendency to use people his targets love as leverage,” Tanya said. She’d had to be a party to several abductions during her tenure with Orlando. It was a disgusting parallel with her early years with her father.

  “It fits his profile.” Luke grimaced.

  “Quade Wilson. I was able to confirm he is a CIA asset, more of a contractor than an employee. It was hard to track him down, but someone who knows someone worked with him once. His body was found stuck in a canal. He’d been sitting in a morgue as a John Doe until yesterday, when he was identified. Tanya, how did he die?” Abigail focused the whole room on her.

  Tanya swallowed.

  The gunshot. She could still hear it ringing in her ear. Feel the splatter of blood on her skin.

  “Single shot to the face,” she managed to get out without trembling.

  “That information hasn’t yet been released,” Abigail said. She pulled a notebook from her bag and flipped it open. “My Mossad contacts would not confirm Tanya’s identity over the phone, but I was able to get them to admit that they were involved with training a highly-unusual operative. For how long, Tanya?”

  “According to the calendar, it was six months.”

  “How long did it feel like it took?”

  “A lifetime.” Tanya shuddered.

  “Where were you?”

  “Some underground, prison-like facility.” She shrugged. “They brought me in wearing a blindfold and noise canceling headphones with a bag over my head. We were in a helicopter for part of it. No disguising that.”

  “Fuck.” Luke glanced away, his lips pressed together tightly.

  Abigail placed a hand on his arm, a touch that seemed to calm the man.

  “My professional opinion?” She glanced at Kyle then the others. “Tanya is what she says she is. No one would outright say that Orlando has turned on his allies, but anytime his name was mentioned, people had questions, and a lot of them. Carefully worded ones, with a lot of emotion behind them. Big picture? People are scared.”

  “What’s our next move then?” Isaac asked

&n
bsp; “We get out of here,” Abigail said without hesitation. “This location, while secure, makes us a target. Besides, when I meet with my contact, we will hopefully be put in touch with the right people. From there, we go into a defensive strategy.”

  “How do we know this person will be able to help?”

  “If they can’t, then I don’t know who can,” Abigail replied.

  Luke brushed up against Abigail, a casual contact that spoke of familiarity and tenderness.

  “Our job now is to get Tanya verified and back to the US, where the authorities can use what she knows to make a plan to counter whatever Orlando is working toward,” he said.

  “Actually, we’ve got a problem there, too.” Isaac’s mouth curled into a grimace.

  “Something happen while we were in the air?” Abigail asked.

  “I contacted someone I knew from the CIA.” Tanya straightened her spine and steeled herself against censure. “He was a friend. Someone who coached me through the application process. When I got my offer we stopped speaking, but he knows who I am.”

  “Can this agent verify you officially?” Abigail glanced at Luke, then back to Tanya.

  “No.” Tanya swallowed. “He told me to steer clear of the CIA, specifically the D.C. offices. Orlando has someone there and they know it.”

  “That doesn’t change what our goal is.” Luke glanced around the room. “Now, for the rest of you, the nature of this job is now more important and more dangerous. It is outside the bounds of what we normally do, and if anyone wants to hop a plane home, this is your chance.”

  “How certain are you she is who she says she is?” Felix asked.

  Abigail turned, spearing Tanya with her gaze.

  “She fits a type. You can’t make up a history like hers, and with gaping blank spots, it’s easy to fill those in with what you need. She’s easy to vet. Look at any newspaper from the year her father was busted, and chances are, you’ll find at least one picture of her. If I were sculpting someone’s real life into a cover story, I’d pick her.”

  “Felix, no one will make you stay,” Luke reiterated.

  “Nah, I’m staying, I just want to be sure, you know? This is...it’s deep shit. We’ll do better as a team, anyway.”

  “Agreed,” Luke said.

  “I think we’re all on board if you guys are, right?” Felix glanced over his shoulder at the others. “We can move on.”

  “Actually, let’s take five, start gathering some gear to go, and reconvene. This way when we make a decision we’re ready to go, how’s that?” Kyle suggested.

  “Fine by me,” Luke said.

  The guys split, each headed in a different direction. Kyle closed in on the newly arrived couple, putting their heads together. They were talking about Tanya. She knew it.

  The skin between her shoulder blades prickled, and her stomach tightened. Other people were deciding her fate, and she had no say in the matter. She’d joined the CIA so she’d never again have to let someone else drive her life, and now here she was. Being taken for a ride.

  A warm hand closed around hers, tugging her into the kitchen.

  Isaac pulled her to the very corner of the galley style space and put himself between her and the others. He cupped her face, lifting her chin and stared into her eyes. She was so damn grateful to him. Whenever she wobbled, he was there. Whenever she needed support, there he was. Isaac was her personal security blanket.

  “How you doing in there?” he asked.

  “I’m equal parts relieved and scared.”

  “You’re doing great, cupcake.”

  “Thanks.” She tried to smile but it felt forced. “I want my life back. This, being undercover? It was never my plan. I wanted to help people, put the bad guys behind bars, but this? I’m not built for it, Isaac. I can’t be this person anymore.”

  “Come here.”

  Isaac folded his arms around her, giving her a warm squeeze. She wished this moment could go on forever, so she could lose herself in the feel of his arms around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder, taking that support.

  If they could get her reinstated with the CIA, she could turn the rest of it over to people who knew what they were doing. She was out of her depth, and if it weren’t for Isaac and the others she’d have been dead by now. No doubt about that.

  13.

  Sunday. Washington, D.C.

  Orlando inhaled the muggy air.

  “I’d say it’s nice to be back, but that would be a lie,” he muttered under his breath.

  He hadn’t set foot on American soil since Elda’s death. He’d come to claim her body and bring home what was left of her, vowing to never again come here unless he was bringing retribution with him.

  Today he was making true on that promise. In a twist of events that could only be called fate, everything was coming full circle in a beautiful way.

  He stepped off the plane and descended to the tarmac. His phone rang before he had more than one foot on the ground.

  “Yes?”

  “The customers want to move up the timetable,” Edwin said.

  “Too bad. These things can’t be rushed.”

  “That’s what I told them, sir.”

  “And?”

  “If they had anything to say about it, they didn’t say it to me.”

  “I see. Just a reminder, we will not be speaking English for the rest of this trip.”

  “Understood, sir.” Edwin switched languages smoothly.

  Orlando had really underutilized the young man. He was proving adept and resourceful, if a little slow on the upkeep.

  “The man in London is in place, sir.”

  “Has the operative moved?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, when they have an opening, take care of it quickly. I need everything lined up in a few hours.” Orlando would have preferred to be present for this one himself, but at times like these he had to make decisions. “Call me when it is finished. Everything hinges on this going according to plan. One wrong move, and we might as well have never even tried.”

  Sunday. London, England.

  Isaac hated leaving gear behind, but they needed to travel lighter than usual. Whatever they couldn’t wear or fit in a backpack had to stay. The building manager had agreed to ship the excess to their Aegis Seattle office, probably because he wanted them gone as soon as possible.

  “Everyone in position?” Abigail asked via the headset.

  One by one the teams of two confirmed their location.

  Sweat trickled down his spine.

  The chef coat he’d put on over his vest cut into his throat, making it hard to breathe.

  No one was going to believe they were building employees out on a break, but all they needed was a moment of hesitation. Thanks to the head of security, they knew exactly who and where all of The Patrol members staking out the building were sitting.

  “Just a reminder, use non-lethal force first. We don’t want to have to explain a bunch of dead guys,” Luke said.

  “Everyone have eyes on their targets?” Abigail asked.

  “Yeah,” Isaac replied.

  The plan was simple: they hit the guys watching the building hard and all at once. Knock them out, tie them up, and get out of there–without a tail.

  He glanced over his shoulder at Tanya. The bellhop hat hid most of her hair, but there was no disguising who she was. Her distinctive look would always make her a standout. He tapped his comm to mute it.

  “Just stay here until I signal you, okay?” He grasped her hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “Adam, how’s the garage situation? Can you hear us yet?” Abigail somehow managed to keep her tone light and confident despite their serious circumstances. “Anyone have eyes on the SUV yet?”

  “Negative,” Felix responded.

  Isaac grimaced. That couldn’t be good.

  The comm crackled, someone’s words jumbling together.

  “The chariot is on its way.” Adam’s voice broke a time or
two.

  “You sound chipper. Who’d you kill?” Felix asked.

  “No one,” Adam replied.

  “Everyone, move. Now,” Abigail barked.

  “Stay here,” Isaac said once more to Tanya.

  If The Patrol got their hands on her, it was a whole other ballgame. That was why they couldn’t simply get in the SUV and motor off, hoping to lose the follow cars on the London streets. They had to eliminate the threat to Tanya now, before they met with Abigail’s source.

  Isaac drew his Glock and stepped out of the employee entrance onto the loading dock. He had a perfect view of the driver sitting in a white panel van staring at his phone.

  The guy was too preoccupied to see Isaac coming.

  He lightly jumped off the dock, landing on the balls of his feet.

  It was a kid, maybe twenty years old. God, Isaac felt old. Did he even shave yet?

  Isaac grimaced and closed the distance to the van. He yanked the driver’s door open and the kid nearly fell out. The phone went flying, glass crunching as it landed on the concrete.

  “Come here.” Isaac grabbed a handful of the boy’s shirt and jerked him out of the van.

  The kid flailed, his too-long legs buckling. He fell to his knees. Isaac didn’t allow him to get his feet under him. He hauled the kid up against the side of the van and held the gun under the kid’s chin.

  The safety was on, but Isaac wouldn’t tell him that.

  The kid’s eyes went wide, to the point Isaac could see himself reflected back in the boy’s stare.

  “I should just kill you right now.” He didn’t have a great line, nothing inspirational sprung to mind, but this was a moment in this boy’s life when he could chose to change paths.

  Gangs were sometimes a fill-in for absent family, but organizations like The Patrol didn’t care about its members, only that there were enough warm bodies to do what had to be done. It wasn’t too late for this kid, he could still get out of this.

  “N-no—please. They paid me to sit here. Please—no!” The kid held his hands up.

  Isaac stared at the boy a second too long while the sense of foreboding knotted his gut.