Flash of Fury

by Lea Griffith

  Something oily moved in King’s gut. “Is Dresden showing his face?”

  Endgame had been after Dresden’s Lebanese arms pipeline when sugar had gone to shit on that Beirut operation. He’d been on their radar because his shipments of Uzis and AK-47s were finding their way all over the world. He’d become a major player on the worldwide stage, and someone was supplying him, giving him unfettered access to U.S. military installations and putting American M4s and M16s on the market as well. Guns, ammo, rocket launchers—you name it, he was gathering them all up, from all over the world, and selling them to the highest bidder. He’d hit four U.S. bases in the last year. Even with heightened security, he’d gotten in and out with little to no resistance. That reeked of inside help.

  Endgame wanted to end Dresden. He had to be stopped. That he’d reached out and touched King’s team gave King even more impetus to see the bastard taken down.

  “Negative. But there’s talk Savidge is making friends with Boko Haram. How’s your vacation going?”

  And there was confirmation of the Boko Haram link. It explained why the terrorists had wanted Allie. It was a connection that had the queasy feeling back in King’s gut. Maybe she’d been used as bait for him. “It doesn’t stop raining in this country. Rook headed out for his R & R?”

  “Ukraine’ll never be the same,” came the clipped response. “You need a ride?”

  “Nah, we’re taking a cruise. I’ll handle it. I need intel on my supposed courier,” King said in a low voice. “Something better than what you gave me last time.”

  He glanced at Allie, saw she was still out to the world, and continued watching the road.

  “I gave you everything the travel agent had,” Jude responded in a near whisper.

  “Where are you, JD?” King asked.

  “Someplace that looks a lot like hell.”

  “You need to contact Travelocity and find out the rest of the agenda for my trip. They didn’t give me everything I needed.”

  King refused to say anymore. Their connection was as secure as any satellite connection could be, but discretion had been ingrained in them, hence the talk-around.

  “I’ll do what I can. Can’t make any promises. Gave you what they sent me before you left. If I find anything I’ll get it to you ASAP. I gotta run, Your Highness. Holler at you later.”

  King winced at the nickname. Before Beirut, it had been a way for his team to poke fun at him. Now, in the post-Beirut times, it was nothing more than a reminder of the team members he’d lost in battle.

  King shook his head. He’d given his man what he had—they were taking a ship home, and he needed more information on Allie Redding. If he didn’t hear back from Jude, he’d have to tap Rook for more information. Rook’s wife, Vivi, was a CIA cyber-spy. She maintained her contacts at Langley while also working for Endgame Ops. She traveled a slippery slope, but her intel was always spot-on. The only valuable, reliable, honest spook King had ever met, and he still doubted every word out of her mouth.

  Trust, but verify.

  King’s brain sifted through everything he’d learned. The information was there, waiting to be deciphered, but he was missing vital pieces that would tell him the direction he needed to take. He’d been guided to that plane on the same day the supposed information carrier was to be heading to Paris. Then that same plane had been hijacked. They’d been looking for Allie, no doubt about it. The question was why? Was her father being leveraged?

  She denied being a courier, but her father was the director of the CIA. And the CIA was all up in Endgame Ops business. Were they up in Dresden’s as well? What was the connection?

  One plus one plus one wasn’t adding up to three. It was adding up to way more than that.

  Speaking of Allie, King needed to pull over and hydrate her. He was flying by the seat of his pants now. She said she wasn’t a field medic, and King had the bare minimum training in wounds. He’d stitched his own ass up more times than he’d doctored anyone else. Add in the fact that she’d somehow managed to get under his skin, and it wasn’t an ideal situation.

  He pulled well off the rough roadway and got out, hurrying to her side of the car. He hadn’t passed another car in thirty minutes, but he didn’t want anyone stopping. He had just reached for her neck when her eyes opened and she gasped.

  Her pupils were blown, fear making the blue bleed to black as they dilated.

  “It’s me, Allie,” he murmured.

  She grabbed his hand and made a pathetic attempt at fending him off.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, baby.” King wanted to curse. Baby? Really, King? The endearments were falling from his mouth like money from a rich man’s pockets.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  “It’s okay. I need you to drink some water, okay?” King rummaged through the sack at her feet and located a bottle. He unscrewed the cap and held it to her lips. Water dribbled from the sides of her mouth, and she pushed at him again.

  The sight of the dried blood on her hands had fury moving through King. Flesh wound or not, he’d find the fucker who shot her if it was the last thing he did. They’d hurt her. They’d pay.

  Find them and do what, McNally? He had another, far more preemptive mission. What he needed to focus on was getting her home. Revenge led to bad things—things you couldn’t undo. He had firsthand experience with that one.

  “Drink, Allie,” he demanded. Fire lit her eyes as the blue struggled to gain a foothold. “Yeah, baby, that’s it. Get mad.”

  “Drowning me,” she murmured.

  “Drink and you won’t drown,” he told her, keeping his voice even.

  She did, drinking several long sips before she pushed him away and closed her eyes.

  “That’s my girl,” he said.

  Her eyes opened again and narrowed. He chuckled as she laid her head gently against the headrest, and then he pulled his hand away, tightening the lid on the water. She licked her lips, and he automatically leaned closer.

  Allie yawned, and her head lopped to the side. “Don’t think about kissing me.”

  He lifted her head, wedging his hoodie between it and the seat so it wouldn’t happen again. Kissing was exactly what he’d been thinking of. “I won’t kiss you right now. Can’t promise about the future.”

  He’d never responded to a woman the way he had with her. Her kiss had rocked his world. It was insanity and yet another reason he had to get her far away. He damn well wanted to kiss her again.

  He was starting to close her door when she reached out. He leaned back down.

  “We’re headed toward Kribi. When we get there, I know some people who can help us. Head to Max’s bar. It’s on the main strip, easy to find,” Allie directed him.

  “Who’s Max?” He didn’t like the shaft of jealousy that streaked through him. A handful of hours they’d been together, and he was jealous over her already? Crazy.

  She licked her lips, and King stifled his groan. “Safety. Trust me, King McNally.”

  She was asking the impossible. Trust was earned, and he hadn’t known her long enough for that to happen. She’d followed him when he’d demanded it. She’d given herself into his keeping while giving him nothing more than a bit of sass. She obviously trusted him. Could he do the same? He refused to confuse lust with trust, but the lines were blurring dangerously.

  He straightened and watched her slide back into sleep. Confusion cramped his brain. Why would this woman have a contact that ensured safety? Maybe her father had a network for her just in case she ran in to trouble? King trusted no one with Allie now. Everyone could be compromised. He would get her to safety his own way.

  He closed her door and walked back around, getting in and starting the Rover. King pulled her sat phone from her pants pocket and scrolled through it until he found what he was looking for—Daddy.

  He waited there for long
moments contemplating the move he was about to make, wondering if he’d lost his mind. The last thing he needed was another agency full-out hunting his ass. On the other hand, while he may hate the CIA with everything in him, having a favor owed to him by the director could be worth a life in the future.

  King let his thumb hover over the call button, conflicted, because at the root of the fiasco in Beirut there’d been a mole—a true traitor—and as much as King wanted to forget it, the fingerprint of that betrayal had CIA written all over it.

  The sounds of the helo taking fire, the flames as the fuel tank took a direct hit, and the absence of noise as the rotors stopped and the bird fell from the sky—the memories were a riot in King’s mind.

  He hit Send. It rang only once.

  “Allie?”

  King grunted. “No, sir, but your daughter is safe.”

  “Who is this? Why do you have my daughter’s phone?”

  “King McNally, and I have her phone because she’s asleep.” He waited and received nothing. “Allie is safe, Director, but there’ll be a delay getting her home.”

  Silence stretched taut along the connection.

  “Why does Endgame have my daughter?” His desperation was harsh over the line. For a brief second, King felt the man’s pain.

  “A better question,” King began. “Why is your daughter traveling alone in a compromised area of the world?”

  “You don’t ask the questions here, McNally. That’s my daughter you have. I want her home immediately.”

  “I’ll bring her home, but I’m going to need a favor,” King told him.

  “I don’t bargain with terrorists,” Gray Broemig said firmly.

  And there was the CIA that King knew and hated. “We aren’t terrorists, not even close, and you know this, don’t you, Director? Tell you what, let’s call it a chit instead of a favor. We can even call it a lifer chit if you want. After all, I technically saved your daughter’s life earlier today. So you owe me. Does that make it more palatable, Director Broemig?”

  “If she’s hurt, I’ll kill you.”

  King rifled through his memory for what he knew of Gray Broemig. Decorated Vietnam vet. Check. Married to his high school sweetheart after he returned from the war. Check. Broemig’s wife died in an embassy bombing over twenty years ago, but there’d never been mention of a daughter. A daughter Broemig allowed to traipse abroad unprotected doing work with a volunteer organization? Negative. King hadn’t known that one.

  Fucking spooks—they all lied, even when the truth sounded better. They buried their lives under layer upon layer of dirt, hoping no one would be smart enough to dig it up. King knew there were motivated people in the world now. He was one of them.

  “You could probably do exactly what you’ve said, but I’ve got your daughter and if you want her back”—the threat made King’s stomach churn—“you’ll give me what I want.” He’d never hurt Allie, but the threat had to sound real, and if King could do anything, it was make a threat sound real.

  “Name it,” Broemig demanded in a tone that promised hell had frozen over.

  King chuckled. He knew where Allie got her temper. “Just agree to the chit, Director. I’m not quite ready to collect. When I am, you’ll owe me.”

  “I’m bent over a barrel. The chit is yours,” Broemig returned. “Now, what’s your plan?”

  Broemig had taken over the CIA twenty years ago but had been entrenched in the spy world long before then. He was rarely seen and ruled his operatives with an iron fist. Some likened his tactics to those of the KGB. That had never bothered King. He’d always said whatever it took to get the job done was what had to happen. He’d worked with CIA liaisons on several missions over the years—they were well-trained, efficient, cold killers.

  “I’m still figuring things out. We’ll talk later, Director. But you’ve got a leak the size of Texas in your organization. Perhaps you should concentrate on that. That tracer on her phone wasn’t smart. Somebody has either hacked you, or they followed her movement via that tracer. Either way she’s in play now.” King disconnected and turned the phone off.

  Having the director of the CIA owe you a chit was worth gold. They may lie, steal, and cheat, but they came through on their promises…most of the time. And surely, even though most would sell their soul to accomplish a mission, the director loved his daughter.

  “I don’t like being used as a pawn.”

  Allie’s voice rippled through him, the husky notes full of pain and anger. He could really get behind a woman who had no problem showing her anger. He could probably get in front, under, and on top of her too.

  King sighed. “Then you should have gotten in a different line when they were handing out parents. Games and pawns and aggressive moves are all people like your dad understand. He made the rules.”

  “That’s pretty black and white for a spec ops boy who does his fair share of playing games,” she returned.

  “The world is black and white until you meet the gray—then everything changes and you have to blend in.”

  She laughed, but it was a sound without humor. “Pot, I’d like to introduce you to Kettle.”

  He glanced at her, looking away quickly lest he get sucked into her gaze. Something about her screamed at him to trust her. The circumstances were too unfamiliar though. “I’ll get you home safely.”

  She hissed in a short breath as she shifted on the seat. “I’m not a kid, McNally. I don’t like operating blind. I don’t like the games either.”

  “I thought you were a simple Peace Corps volunteer, yet now you talk about ‘operating.’ Tell me, Allie, who are you?”

  “Figure of speech, and you’re evading my question,” she said in a low voice.

  Allie stared straight ahead into the darkness. Her stillness unnerved King for some reason. The way she looked directly at him, and what he saw there had his breath catching.

  “During our short association my plane has been hijacked, I’ve been shot at, forced to flee from terrorists, kissed, oh, and the pièce de résistance? I’ve been grazed by a bullet. None of these things happened until you showed up in my life. You’ll have to give me something here, McNally. Something that allows me to trust you with my secrets.”

  A cold, bitter wind rushed through his mind. He’d thought her different, but now she told him she had secrets. What had he expected? So what if her eyes pulled at his soul? She was messing with his mind. King was well aware that everybody had secrets.

  But not everybody is the daughter of the CIA director, his gut whispered.

  So now he was left with a huge issue—trusting her with a truth of his to find out what she was hiding, or continuing to argue with her and make it much more difficult on them both. He was used to making split-second decisions. This one had him in knots. His gut whispered he could trust her. His mind screamed oh hell no.

  “Never mind, McNally. I can see I’ve asked too much,” she said with a small, deprecating laugh.

  King took a deep breath and eyed her before turning his gaze back to the desolate road in front of them. “What do you want from me?”

  She stayed quiet for long moments, finally sighed, and said, “A simple truth. One thing that leaves you vulnerable so I can feel safe enough to be the same.”

  “Then it isn’t such a simple truth, is it?”

  Frustration pierced him. The woman was entirely too trusting. How would she know whether or not he was lying? What if he’d been another man, someone really out to get her? Would she have trusted that man as easily as she was offering to trust him?

  He was close to shutting down, but something about this woman forced him to give her what she wanted. King fought with himself for a while before he blew out a rough breath. “One thing?” he asked, staring at her intently.

  “Just one,” Allie replied softly.

  “When I was sixteen, I
beat my father to death and went to juvenile prison. No matter that I’d endured years of abuse; the system found me guilty. I’d finally grown big enough to give back what he was gifting me with, and the courts sent me away. When I got out at the age of eighteen, I changed my name to Kingston McNally. It was my maternal great-grandfather’s name and much better than Thomas Sacco Jr.” He dropped it into the chasm of silence between them. “You’re one of a very select few who know that information.”

  Her nostrils flared, and she breathed out slowly. “Wow. You went all in with that one, didn’t you?”

  He grunted, waiting.

  “Not so sure that makes me feel any safer but okay—one good turn deserves another.” Allie bit her lip and winced. “When I was six, I snuck into my father’s office at our house and called my mother from his blue phone. The blue phone was off limits unless it was an emergency. Those were the rules. But I missed my mother—she was a UNICEF ambassador and had been out of the country for two weeks, promoting an educational program at the Syrian embassy. I managed to evade my sitter and tutor long enough to call her. I told her I was scared and that bad men were in the house all because I wanted to talk to her.” Allie swallowed thickly, torment edging her tone. “She walked outside to get better reception, and as she stepped to the gate, a car bomb exploded, killing her instantly. When I was six, I killed my mom.”

  King’s heart stopped, then began to beat in a hard rhythm. He reached for her hand, enfolding it in his before he squeezed. In the meager light thrown by the dashboard display, he saw the blood crusted on her hands. He heard the pain in her voice and saw the lines of it drawn on her face.

  She was his responsibility now, and there was no way he was leaving her in anyone else’s hands. Returning her to her father earned King a chit. And even as he assured himself her safety was more important, another dangerous idea had formed. Perhaps this woman could be used to get at Savidge. Eliminating his right-hand man would seriously jeopardize Dresden’s operation, making him weak.