At Any Cost

by Allie K. Adams

  "You don't know what it's like."

  "I would if you'd tell me."

  He'd bite off his own tongue before he shared the details. Not with Turner. At least not with Donovan listening in. No one needed to relive that Hell, and yet Dan lived it every day of his miserable existence. "Can we move on?"

  "You can't bring him back! Going after Peck may make you feel better, but it just puts you in the same league as him."

  He'd never had anyone put it so abruptly, but she was right. He hated Peck and would like to see him take his place in Hell. But killing Peck in cold blood didn't make Dan any better than the monster who killed his partner.

  "Then it's settled?" JT looked at him, waiting for his next argument.

  "No partners."

  "I'd be a good partner."

  "That's not what the fellows back at Gahanna tell me."

  JT dropped her jaw, then snapped it closed. "That's because they couldn't keep up with me."

  "Maybe I just don't like you."

  "Now you're just being mean."

  "I'm not a nice person." Dan caught her eyes with his. They were shining. She was certainly enjoying this.

  So was he.

  "That's no secret. You need to work on your people skills."

  "You have a tendency to get shot. I don't want to get caught in the crossfire."

  "You're lucky I don't shoot you myself for that one."

  They sat there, staring at each other, completely oblivious to the fact Donovan still sat across from them. Dan felt a tug in his pants a split second before he made the connection. Christ. He started to swell from the verbal foreplay and shifted in his chair to hide the growing bulge in his pants.

  Her gaze slid down. Judging by the color in her cheeks, she noticed the swell in his pants. He caught that little grin on her face and had to swallow. The she-devil did it on purpose.

  Paybacks are hell, lady.

  He couldn't pay her back unless he went with her. Against his better judgment, he nodded. "I guess I'm in."

  Donovan blew out a breath. Dan shifted his gaze to him.

  The bastard was smiling. As soon as he caught Dan watching him, he quickly shifted his eyes away. But not soon enough.

  Holy hell. Donovan nailed him. Dan fell for his little plan hook, line, and sinker. He didn't know why he never saw it. NASSD would never allow Dan to go after Peck anyway. They knew it would be personal, knew Dan would stop at nothing, even if it meant taking out more agents if they were protecting Peck. It could turn into a NASSD bloodbath. Only one agent would be able to stop him.

  The one NASSD trained to replace him.

  Chapter 9

  She was in. And with the legendary Dan Weber. She still didn't care much for the Donovan fellow, but he at least gave her another chance. And from the little job he had for her, she'd be the key assassin on their next mission.

  She'd succeed. She had to. This would be her second—and last—chance. If she blew this op, she was out of NASSD. Period. The end.

  She didn't like the little stipulation attached to her newfound chance. If Dan Weber went against HQ for any reason, JT had orders to take him out by any means necessary. It was either agree to those terms or leave NASSD.

  Did he have to agree to those same terms? What kind of partnership was that? A shiver washed up her spine.

  It wasn't a partnership at all. It was an execution.

  Donovan spoke. "Weber, where the hell is LEON ?"

  "It's safe."

  JT whipped her head around so fast the room started to spin. She brought her hand up and pushed her palm into her temple to dull the throb. The room started to come back into focus. She blinked until she could fix her eyes on Dan. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  He threw her a sideways glance. " I don't know if I can trust you."

  Donovan pushed himself up with his cane. "I'll be right back." He hobbled out. As soon as he cleared the room, JT turned and glared at Dan.

  His insult slammed into her reserve. How dare he not trust her! She felt the growing need to cold cock him again. Jerk. She glanced over her shoulder at the door, confirmed Donovan had indeed left, before she leaned toward him and whispered, "How could you not trust me?"

  "I don't know you," he answered her, but wouldn't look at her. Instead, he focused on the large mirror in front of them. "Did you notice when the light went out?"

  "What light?"

  He nodded toward the mirror. "Behind the mirror."

  She couldn't care less when the light went out. "It's a mirror, Weber."

  Instead of saying anything, he continued to study the mirror.

  "Answer me, goddamn you! You can trust me now, right?"

  He pulled his gaze away from the mirror to look at her. And not nicely. "We'll see." He shifted his attention back to the damn mirror.

  JT snapped her mouth closed, giving up. "You suck."

  "Yep."

  "Well," she had to think of something to one-up him. "Can I trust you?"

  "You have no reason not to."

  "Same with me."

  He looked at her in obvious disbelief. "Do you want me to make a list? Let's start with the way I found you. You were running for your life with top-secret information in your pocket. Then you tried to escape. You came this close to handing LEON over to the enemy. You nearly got us both killed. Shall I go on?" The steely look in his eyes as he laid them on her made JT bite the inside of her cheek.

  She accepted defeat. It didn't mean she had to like it. JT and Dan exchanged heated glares as long as possible before turning their eyes to Donovan as he came back in the room.

  "You've heard of the Mercado cartel?" Donovan asked JT as he sank back down in his seat.

  She nodded, grateful to put Dan as far out of her head as possible. Work. She focused on the question, recalling as much as she could from her training. "A powerful family in Colombia, both politically and financially. The head of the family is Santos Mercado, thirty-seven. Only child. Mother died a few years back. NASSD took out his father, Carlos Mercado, twenty-five years ago. The mom blamed the United States for Carlos' death, and raised Santos to hate us in every way."

  "Very good, Miss Turner. I see you've done your homework."

  "They had me studying the Mercado cartel back at Gahanna."

  "What do you know about LEON ?"

  JT stole a glance at Dan. He'd been studying Donovan carefully, though JT didn't know why. When Donovan mentioned LEON , Dan shook his head slightly, an odd look in his eyes as he locked them with hers. She couldn't read it, but she could feel it. He was cautioning her. About what, she didn't know.

  But she wasn't about to volunteer anything, either. "I know how to spell it. That's about it."

  "What'd you forget?" Dan spoke up.

  Donovan looked at him. "Come again?"

  "You must have forgot something in the other room to have to leave in the middle of a briefing." Dan's jaw hardened.

  "Oh. My cigarettes." He held up the pack, took one out and lit it, blowing smoke into the air. It lifted in a lazy swirl and settled as a smelly cloud above the group. He eyed JT. "So you are saying you didn't contact members of the LEON project?"

  JT went rigid. How did he know about that? Her eyes darted around. Dan perked up, no doubt from her not-so-subtle body language, and leaned forward in his chair.

  "JT?" Dan asked cautiously. "Did you?"

  She didn't see the need to lie. So she used them to try and gather enough information to find LEON and also find the mole. Was that a crime? "I did."

  "Jesus Fucking Christ," Dan rasped, slouching back into his chair. He gave her a once over before shaking his head and turning away.

  "See?" Donovan seemed rather proud of himself.

  "Did you do it?" Dan rasped.

  She felt impaled by his unyielding gaze. Swallowing hard, she tried to push the interrogation back to him. "Do what?"

  When his eyes narrowed in on her, they were lethal. Eyes of steel, cold and impenetrable. Eyes of an assas
sin. She thrust out her chin, refused to back down. "Did you kill those agents?"

  JT choked on the gasp as it escaped. "Kill them? Of course not!" Her back went ramrod straight as she met each set of eyes. "Why? What happened?" When no one answered, she asked again. "What happened?"

  Dan spoke up, that steel look gone. "Three of the men from the LEON project have been murdered. Men you have recently contacted. Men who claimed to have spent the last night of their lives in the company of a hot brunette." He glared up at her hair, the look mixing in his eyes jolting her senses into high anxiety. He looked like he wanted to shave her bald.

  At this point of the juncture, she wouldn't be opposed. As long as he stopped looking at her like that. He acted as if he hated her. Or at least her hair. "And you think I'm the hot brunette?"

  "Something like that," Dan finished.

  "I contacted them. But I didn't kill them."

  Dan wouldn't look at her, which tore right through her heart like a poisoned dagger. "Why did you contact them?"

  "I was looking for LEON . And the mole. I got this list."

  Dan's spine went straight instantly. His eyes riveted to her. "List? Who gave it to you?"

  Should JT tell them? It couldn't get Uncle Charlie in any trouble. He'd lost touch with reality long ago. It wasn't like he'd even realize if he were in trouble. "Charlie Cole."

  "Christ," Dan growled. He looked at Donovan. "I thought you said he was out of commission."

  "I didn't even know the invalid could talk."

  "Hey!" JT jumped to her feet, charged Donovan. "Don't you dare talk about him like that. He's a good man. He gave his all for this agency. And what did you do to repay him? You threw him on his ear when he no longer served his purpose."

  "That's not what happened," Donovan defended. "Cole cracked."

  "You dismissed him. Sent him on an extended vacation. That's what made him crack."

  Donovan narrowed his eyes at her. "Why are you so concerned with him? What's he to you?"

  "Holy shit," Dan stated, barely above a whisper. "I never made the connection. You're Jessica."

  JT whipped around. "How did you know my real name? No one calls me that but my—"

  "Uncle Charlie," Dan finished.

  "Who?" Donovan asked.

  "Charlie Cole is Turner's uncle. This is the little Jessica he always talked about," Dan explained.

  JT couldn't breathe, the bombs dropping on her faster than her mind could process. And that was saying something. "You know him?"

  Dan looked up at her. "I know him."

  "How?"

  "Hello? Agents?" Donovan interrupted. "Care to play catch up later? We kind of have a little national security issue that takes precedence over good old Uncle Charlie."

  JT took her seat. She had every intention of playing catch up later. She wanted to know how Dan knew her uncle. Uncle Charlie never said which project he'd been a part of. Could he have been on the team as Dan Weber? That could make anyone crack. "Go ahead."

  "Thank you," he replied sarcastically. "In those files you'll find everything you need. Maps. Pesos. Your passport. You have hotel reservations at the Decameron Cartagena." He held up the hotel's brochure and read the front. "In beautiful Cartagena de Indias, South America's heroic city and the historic Heritage of Mankind." He tossed the brochure down on the floor. "It's also home to the biggest drug lord in the world, Santos Mercado."

  Dan had already opened his file and scanned through its contents. Following his lead, JT swiped the file off the floor and ripped open the seal. He looked at Donovan. "Colombia? You're sending us in?"

  "Your flight leaves in three hours. There will be a limo waiting in Cartagena to take you to the hotel."

  "A limo?" JT could feel her eyes light up. She'd never been inside a limo before.

  "Why now?" Dan asked, seemingly unimpressed with the thought of riding in a limo. He kept flipping through the papers, shuffling them around, as if searching for something.

  "According to intel, Mercado has been saving up for a rainy day. Then LEON disappeared and we feared the worst. When you uncovered Peck behind LEON 's disappearance, you uncovered something big. Traces of him pop up here and there, but he always seems to stay a step ahead."

  "His latest trick would have been LEON . Miss Turner had no idea what she'd gotten herself into. If you hadn't been there, she wouldn't be here."

  "I saw Mercado's men at the hotel," Dan stated and flipped through more papers.

  JT turned to him. "You did?"

  Donovan stopped in mid-drag. "How do you know it was Mercado's men?"

  Dan lifted his gaze and rested it on Donovan. "I know."

  "Peck is working with Mercado." JT nodded in understanding, verbally connecting the dots. "Peck wants LEON as a bargaining tool. Mercado is a major player. Peck wants to be. He contacts Mercado, dangles LEON in front of him for what I'd guess to be a hell of a lot of money. Mercado agrees to his terms and partners up with Peck. Now Peck just needs LEON to complete the deal."

  "Which means he'll try again," Dan added.

  Donovan grunted in agreement. "Peck could be Mercado's connection in the United States. He has to have someone on our soil doing his dirty work. If Mercado so much as places a toe on America's terra firma, we have the go ahead to take him out."

  "Peck also needs someone inside NASSD. My guess is he planned to use JT, at least to get his hands on LEON ," Dan pointed out.

  "That still doesn't explain the woman who killed those agents," Donovan jumped in.

  "The woman could be a hooker for all we know. Peck could have hired her to slip them some sort of drug. Mercado probably gave him a hefty down payment on LEON . He could have paid just about anyone to seduce them." Dan shook his head. "But I don't think the woman killed them."

  Donovan darted his eyes to Dan. "You don't?"

  "Peck killed them. Six shots. It's his trademark."

  JT studied Dan, noticed how his eyes darkened.

  "Mercado is still our mark, not Peck." Donovan pointed to their folders. "Peck will stay on American soil until he gets his hands on LEON ."

  Dan glanced over at JT before dropping his attention to the folder in his hands. "What's our cover?"

  "JT is an American woman running away from her jealous boyfriend. We want her to be a distraction for Mercado. Just long enough to get close to him and take him out."

  "What about me?" Dan asked carefully.

  "You're the jealous boyfriend who followed her down to Colombia to take her home. She will be in the bar Wednesday night. We planted the bartender down there six months ago. He'll point her out to Mercado's men. They always come in to town to stock up on Wednesday nights and leave the next day.

  "You two will have a fight. JT will find protection behind the men. They will take her back with them."

  Dan laughed without an ounce of humor in his tone. "And you expect that to work? Jesus, Donovan. This guy has a ten-foot high barbed-wire fence surrounding his compound, and armed guards coming out his ass. How is she supposed to get back out once she completes the op?"

  Donovan swallowed, looked around the room. "Mercado loves American women. He'll take her in. He always takes a girl back to the compound. Once inside, she'll do a perimeter sweep."

  Dan's face solidified. His entire body tensed. "How—is she—supposed—to get—back—out?" His voice had dropped dangerously low and his eyes were like ice. He spoke slowly, and every word punched into the tense air.

  "We're still working out the details."

  "Jesus, Hell, and Satan. Why not stand her in front of a goddamn firing squad? You'd better have back up on stand by. As soon as the first shot is fired, all hell is going to break loose." Dan narrowed his eyes as he looked at Donovan. Something clicked. "No way."

  No way what? JT darted her eyes back and forth to whoever talked.

  Donovan shook his head. "We can't afford the exposure. You have to go in unarmed."

  “No, damn it. We have to have weapons."

&
nbsp; JT straightened at the news. "No weapons? Why send us in unarmed?"

  "Mercado has every port covered. Airport. Seaport. There is no way in or out of Colombia without him knowing about it. We can't take the risk," Donovan explained.

  JT followed the conversation. How did Dan know Donovan planned to send them in unarmed before he ever said it? She noticed how Donovan avoided Dan's eyes. Dan must have read something in them JT didn't.

  "No way. Are you insane?" Dan's voice started to rise, and his tone sliced into the air like a razor.

  Donovan's tone remained steady. "There's no other way. We can't send in the cavalry or Mercado would know. You two are our only shot."

  "Bullshit. There's no such thing as an only shot. You know that. I know that. She's a rookie. She isn't ready for an assignment like this. One slip of the tongue and he'll kill her without hesitation."

  "You'll be there."

  "I can't get in there with her. You don't have any plans to pull her back out. This is a goddamn suicide mission!" Dan barked. "I won't let you railroad her like this. Peck—"

  "Is not your mark," Donovan reminded him. "Mercado is."

  "This has 'set up' written all over it," Dan argued. The vein in his jaw started to throb. He pounded the folder into the air to emphasize his words.

  JT listened as the two men argued her fate. It felt warm and confusing to have Dan defend her so passionately. Did he care so deeply for her he was too worried about her to let her do her job? Or did he think she couldn't do it?

  Regardless, it was JT's decision and hers alone. Her heart fluttered as she contemplated her choice. She could always turn it down, and live with knowing she let NASSD down yet again. It could be another decision she'd live to regret.

  Or she could take the op. Prove once and for all NASSD didn't make a mistake with her. Make them proud. Make her Uncle Charlie proud. The decision was easy. "I'll do it."

  Dan bit his tongue, cursed. "What? Didn't you hear a word I just said?"

  "I heard you."

  He obviously didn't know what to say. For several seconds he seemed to search for what to say next. "JT, the odds are one-in-a-million you'll even get to Mercado before he realizes who you are and gets you first."