SLEEPER (Crossfire Series)

by Gennita Low

  “What’s your name?”

  The man looked at him again, and this time his eyes gleamed with what Reed thought was amusement. “A little late for introductions, don’t you think?” He turned his attention back to the dirt path. “Watch for your team. They’re about to move in on Galbert.”

  The old building reared up in the darkness like some haunted house. The car lights lit up just enough for Reed to see the electronic door opening. The vehicle ahead of theirs slowed down.

  “Nikki, he’s speaking in German,” Reed said. “I don’t understand 100 percent what he’s saying.”

  “He’s telling his men to allow the vehicle behind him to drive into the compound. He ordered them not to shoot you until his say-so.”

  “Glad to know that,” Reed said wryly.

  A flare flew into the air, landing right in front of Galbert’s vehicle as it passed through the gates. A second flare bounced off its hood. The car jerked as the driver reacted by braking hard.

  Reed heard Galbert curse and order the driver to move on. At that very moment Reed’s companion stepped on the gas and rammed into Galbert’s vehicle.

  Reed leaned out the window and shot out the tire. He shot again, taking out the other back tire. He remained in the car, his weapon trained on the vehicle. He knew it would be difficult for Galbert to spot him or the man next to him just yet. He had the advantage of listening in on the hushed conversation inside that vehicle. All he needed was to find the exact spot his target was sitting at and which door would open first…

  “My team’s heading down closer. No one else but Galbert, Reed.”

  That he could agree to. “Ten-four,” Reed said, wondering for a split second how Nikki could be behind him so quickly.

  “I think you’re seriously underestimating your enemy, Gunther,” Reed heard the woman inside the vehicle say. “There’s more than one! Tell the guys inside to shoot!”

  “They’re watching,” Gunther said calmly. “You don’t think I would allow this young man in here and let him just shoot me, do you? Llallana should be ready for our use by now.”

  “You think of everything. Now what? I fear if we go out, they’re going to start shooting at us.”

  “We’re going to take Llallana with us, of course. Obviously, she means a lot or he’d have started shooting already. Something isn’t right. Where are the others? We only know he followed us with that one car. Let’s get him to follow us into the tunnel. Come on. You take the other girl. I’ll handle Llallana. You go out first.”

  Nice guy, asking the lady to go first so she’d be the first to get shot. Reed waited. He pulled out his earpiece as he opened his car door and stepped out. No distraction. He was going to need his entire focus.

  He saw the woman emerge with another girl. That must be Tatiana. The other door opened and Lily came out first, with Galbert behind, holding her like a shield. Reed was close enough to hear bits and pieces of what he was telling Lily.

  “Stand in front of me. Call out for your friend. We need him where we can see him.”

  “Reed!” Lily called out obediently.

  “That’s right. Talia, move toward the tunnel. Reed!” Gunther Galbert yelled out. “If you shoot, I’ll kill Llallana.”

  Reed stepped out where he could be seen, gambling on the fact Galbert had ordered he wasn’t to be shot. “What do you want? Why did you bring me here?” he asked. Lily didn’t react to his presence at all. “Lily?”

  Galbert kept Lily in front of him, backing up, moving toward a corner of the building. The lights were dim and Reed couldn’t see his target’s body behind Lily. He moved forward slowly, following them.

  “Don’t pay attention to him,” Galbert said to Lily. “You, where’s the device? That’s all I want. Llallana stole it for me first.”

  “I’m there. I’m going inside,” Talia called out, a little ways ahead of them.

  Reed ignored her. She wasn’t important to him right now. Nikki would handle everyone else. All he wanted was that one shot.

  “Give me Lily and I’ll give you what you want,” he said.

  Galbert laughed. “I think I have a better advantage with her as my prisoner.” He took a few steps back and turned the corner of the building.

  Reed charged forward, dashing round the corner. He cursed out loud. Galbert and Lily had disappeared.

  Suddenly dark figures jumped out of the shadows from different directions. Reed turned, anticipating his teammates. He was sure they’d been watching the whole incident.

  “Joker, follow me.” The voice was barely a whisper, but Reed recognized the figure easily. It was Hawk, his commander.

  “Yes, sir,” Reed said, moving into team position as if he hadn’t been out of the team the last few months.

  His teammates seemed to have the location of the tunnel already. Hawk hand-signaled the order to move in single file, then slipped into the open hatch.

  As Reed passed Jazz, who always guarded the rear, he was handed gear as well as a pair of lightweight glasses. He put them on and recognized them as gifts from GEM in the recent Joint Mission operation in Asia. They were infrared lenses, enabling the wearer to look for laser alarms and body heat.

  “Gunther Galbert is an electronics and computer expert. We’ve to watch out for laser traps. He probably knows you aren’t alone by now. We’re separating into three groups once inside and we’ll do a search and destroy, except for hostages.”

  “Copy, sir,” Reed said grimly. His mind was on Lily. She was the main hostage as far as he was concerned.

  They moved off in three directions, with Hawk leading his group. The infrared lenses allowed them to move quickly, efficiently taking care of the “blobs” of heat that revealed hidden positions.

  Rat-tat-tat of gunfire in the other direction. Discovery.

  Reed followed instructions and shot out the first door. Hawk was inside before him. It was bare, like a holding room. Hawk cocked his head, listening.

  “Ten-four,” he said. He turned and gestured. “Three hostiles in the hallway. Then up the stairway to the right. Hostiles in that room, and they can see us with their video there.”

  Reed realized Hawk had been listening for instructions. He remembered Nikki telling him they’d been waiting to download hacked files of the floor plans of the target location. Someone at GEM must have finally broken the code.

  He dodged behind what looked like pipes. Bullets ricocheted against the steel. They must be under the building. A short exchange of gunfire. He counted two hostiles down. The third one had run off.

  Reed rushed up the stairs. He heard a door opening and ducked as something sailed over his head. In that split second he shot blindly, hearing a yell when he got his target, but he didn’t like the feeling of suspicion about the thrown object flying through the air at that moment.

  “Hawk!” he yelled down. “Up, man, up!”

  He hung on to the railing as the bottom of the stairway blew up where the small explosive landed. The flare lit up the darkness, and relief and adrenaline moved through him when he caught sight of Hawk’s heat blob clinging on to something a few feet away.

  Grimly he reached out and pulled at his commander’s arm as he scrabbled away from the hole below. The stairway was gone.

  Reed pulled a small Uzi from his gear. Hawk had lost his main weapon when he’d grabbed the railing. Reloaded, they mowed down the entrance, each of them on either side. They moved in, firing.

  “TV room, hostiles down,” Hawk reported. “Next? Reed, the others have found the girls, no sign of Galbert.”

  Reed nodded grimly. “Where’s the next set of hostiles?”

  “I’ll take care of it. They’re reporting two figures moving rapidly up onto the roof and a helicopter heading toward the area. That means some government agency is getting involved. You have to get Galbert before the helicopter shows up. We don’t know how much Lily has told him. We aren’t authorized to interfere with agency maneuvers.”

  “Yes, sir.” Reed l
istened as Hawk gave directions.

  Reed’s mind raced with decisions as he made his way up. Galbert had called for help from his own agency, which meant it had government connections or was part of the government itself. Neither GEM nor his admiral would want an international incident.

  He pulled open the door at the top of the stairs. The cold night air contrasted with the heat inside the building. He could still hear fighting below him as his teammates continued the search and destroy.

  Reed didn’t care at the moment. Someone had turned on a spotlight, probably using it to signal the incoming craft. He breathed in sharply. His target was in sight.

  Gunther Galbert stood against the wall edging the building, a gun to Lily’s temple. He gave Reed a mocking smile, then nuzzled Lily’s ear, crooning softly like a lover. “She’ll do anything I tell her right now. Llallana, do you know why he was at The Beijing Bombshell? He’s one of those people who use girls. I’m protecting your girls from him. That’s right, you know how things fall apart if you don’t take care of the girls, don’t you?”

  “Things fall apart,” Lily echoed softly. “I remember.”

  Galbert looked up at Reed triumphantly. “Why don’t you tell your boyfriend you don’t love him and that you’re coming with me? Tell him you’re going to keep the girls safe from people like him.”

  Reed stared at Lily. She couldn’t have forgotten everything they’d shared so quickly. He told himself she didn’t mean it, that whatever she was going to say, she didn’t have a choice.

  He heard the unmistakable chop-chop-chop of a helicopter approaching from far off. Reed didn’t take his eyes away as dark figures popped up from the side of the building. Galbert backed away even more. For the first time, he appeared nervous.

  “What’s the matter, Galbert?” Reed mocked. “Feeling a bit surrounded?”

  “My government’s on the way. You don’t want to start any incident you can’t explain.”

  “You’ll be dead, Galbert.” Nikki’s voice surprised Reed from behind. “I don’t think your government will care once they see your dead body lying here. They want you as long as you’re alive.”

  That was direct permission to Reed to get his target. His finger rested on the trigger of his weapon, trying to get a clear shot, but Gunther had cleverly put Lily in his way.

  Reed made himself look at her. If he failed, he would kill both her and the bastard behind her. She looked so calm as she stood there. The sound of the chopper was getting louder. He didn’t have much time left.

  Her gaze was intent on him, as if she wanted him to look at her. He needed her to move eight inches one way or the other. That would be just enough to…

  “I love you,” she said. At the same time she bent forward and slammed her body weight hard against Galbert, pushing him into the wall behind them. The impact surprised her captive. There was a shot from the weapon Galbert was holding.

  Instinct and training took over. Without thinking, Reed pulled the trigger. He got Gunther Galbert’s face with one shot. The man slowly slid down to the ground, his hand still holding his gun.

  “Lily!”

  He ran to her, flooded with an unfamiliar fear that Galbert’s shot had hit her. There was no blood. She was moving. Thank God. Thank God.

  He knelt down, his breathing unnaturally harsh as he turned her into his arms. That had been too damned close, even for a good shooter. Her hands were tied behind her back, so she couldn’t get up. He pulled the damned earphones off her, his hands tangling in her hair. He was surprised to find them trembling hard. He pulled away from the open, using the vehicle for cover. “Lily, can you hear me?”

  He ignored the rush of people moving behind him. The helicopter was here and it hovered over the building, stirring the air. He looked up to see Nikki talking into a radio, her attention on the helicopter. It appeared as if she was conversing with their visitors, pointing in Reed’s direction.

  He pulled Lily out of the way so that any interested party could see Galbert’s dead body. A spotlight appeared from the helicopter, and, after a second’s confirmation, it turned off and the craft flew off. No one was interested in a dead spy.

  “God, Reed, it took every bit of my nerves to do that. I kept thinking there was no way you could not hit me, too. Can you untie me?”

  Reed looked down at Lily. Was it safer to leave her tied up until someone took a look at her? She sounded so normal. What did an activated sleeper cell sound like anyway? But if she was still under the influence of some trigger, she would still be under that bastard’s control. He turned to glare at Galbert’s body.

  “Reed!”

  He turned back to Lily. “I can’t free you just yet.”

  She blinked at him, then smiled. “Don’t you trust me? Didn’t you hear what I told you and everyone just now?”

  Reed frowned. He’d been so focused on Galbert that he hadn’t really paid attention. Galbert had been mocking him at the last moment and…“You said you loved me. Yelled it out, actually. And Galbert wanted you to tell me you didn’t!” He pulled her into his arms. “Did you mean it?”

  “I can’t hear you that well. Can you pull the things out of my ears?”

  “Your earphones are off,” he told her.

  “No, dearest heart. There’s something else stuck in there. If you would just freaking untie me, I’d get them out myself.” She shook her head wildly. “Will you pull them out?”

  “Is she okay?” Nikki asked, coming down on her knees.

  “Yes, I think so,” Reed answered. He examined Lily’s ears and felt around. He felt something. He gently pulled them out, then shone his flashlight on his palm. “What the hell?”

  “That other woman…she put them into my ears while I was fighting her,” Lily explained. “I couldn’t hear very well after that. She winked at me.”

  Reed squeezed the small foam bits in his hand. “Earplugs?” he asked, puzzled. “She plugged your ears first so you couldn’t hear the signal.”

  “Good idea,” Nikki said. “Can’t hear signal, can’t get hypnotized.”

  “Now will you free my arms?”

  “Did you mean it then?” Reed demanded. “That last part, when you yelled out for everyone to hear.”

  Lily sighed. “Nikki, can you please tell this man what I said at the top of my voice? It seems he had earplugs in, too.”

  “She said she loved you, Reed,” Nikki said with a smile, then got up. “I think the whole team heard it. Did you hear it, Hawk?”

  Reed looked up. His commander regarded Lily for a long moment. Reed felt her stiffen in his arms.

  “Everyone’s accounted for,” Hawk said, then turned and walked away.

  Lily sighed. “He hates me,” she said.

  Reed hugged Lily fiercely. Other problems could be dealt with later. Right now all he cared about was the woman in his arms. “I couldn’t lose you,” he told her. “Not this time. I was so damn afraid he’d got to you. When you didn’t run—”

  “I couldn’t. He had Tatiana. Tatiana!” Lily sat up. “I need to make sure she’s all right. Poor thing was white as a ghost.”

  “Nikki will go to her. My team’s here and everyone’s safe.” He slowly untied her, then kissed her. Long and slow. “We belong together, Lily. Don’t think of leaving me now.”

  Providence, he thought. Arch had said there were worlds to explore, and he’d become a SEAL, traveling everywhere, looking for that missing thing in his life. Getting away from it all had only made him feel even more alone. He’d seen and done a lot, but nothing had satisfied him.

  He slid an arm around Lily. Until he met an unexpected flower with fierce thorns. He looked up at the cold, wintry sky. Damn it, Arch, you old fox, you were right, man. I caught myself a big wave, dude.

  * * *

  Greta glanced at her watch. They should have the device by now and be heading back. The house hadn’t been unguarded, like Talia and she had thought, and she had wasted some time. She thought of the three dead bodies i
n Gunther’s house. Satisfaction bloomed in her.

  “Old lady against three big guys. Old lady three points. Three big guys, three big zeros,” she murmured. It felt good to prove Gunther wrong. She dismissed the thought of having to explain the bodies. She’d think of something.

  There was just enough time to look over these files quickly. She didn’t want Talia to be the first to see them.

  There was something about her niece, which she couldn’t quite put her finger on, that made her just a little wary. It was difficult to explain. Greta enjoyed Talia’s company, though, especially when she showed her the old photos from her family album. It made Greta even more determined to finish this assignment. A nice holiday at the dacha, catching up with family and news.

  The beep from the computer disturbed her reverie. A little window appeared on the screen, asking for a new password.

  Greta frowned. Talia had said the decoder would handle the passwords and all she had to do was follow the instructions on the screen before inserting the micro flash-drive. Now what?

  She was stumped. She pressed the ESC key. The screen went blank. Scheiss! Please, please don’t erase any files that I’ve downloaded! These damned computers were so unreliable. One moment one held the world in the palm of one’s hand. The next, with a stupid beep and a blank screen, it held one’s balls with its stupid cursor.

  She didn’t have time to restart. Tentatively, she reached out and hit the ESC key again. The screen blinked and a list of files appeared. Greta breathed a sigh of relief. At least there seemed to be something in the drive.