by Nina Bruhns
Curled up on one end of the sofa, Tara glanced down at Marc, who was lounging on the floor at her feet. “Did you find any financial-type paperwork in Ouda Mahmood’s apartment?” she asked.
“There may have been,” Marc said. “I seem to recall seeing a bank statement or two.”
“I’ll look through your scans and check,” she volunteered, then exchanged a smile with her husband. Their expressions were filled with so much love that Gina’s heart literally ached.
Tara’s and Marc’s were the first faces she’d seen when STORM had burst through the door in Louisiana, guns blazing, to rescue her. Gina had been devastated when Tara nearly died from the hideous virus the terrorists had forced her to perfect. And was convinced it was Marc’s deep love and unflagging presence by Tara’s side during her tug-of-war with death that had pulled her through in the end. The couple would always have a special place in Gina’s heart.
How she longed to have a love as strong and true as theirs!
“Okay, what else?” Quinn asked.
Alex straightened from where he stood bookends at the fireplace with Kick, and outlined the search he and Rebel had done on Allah’s Paradise. “Haven’t heard back yet from forensics on most of the evidence we brought up from the wreck. Hopefully tomorrow.”
As Alex spoke, Rebel shifted restlessly on the love seat next to her, brushing nonexistent lint from her skirt. They weren’t looking at each other, either.
“But aside from the million dollars’ worth of diamonds Rebel found, I did notice one other interesting item: a preliminary agenda for a Military Defense Subcommittee meeting of the House Appropriations Committee, scheduled for this Saturday.”
Everyone sat up straight.
“Where’s it being held?” Quinn quickly asked.
“The Capitol.”
“Could that be the terrorists’ possible target in D.C.? The Capitol Building?” Tara asked, alarmed. She unconsciously reached for Marc’s hand.
“Unlikely,” Gregg said from his place in the shadows. “Security there is too strict. They’d never get any kind of weapon through.”
“Unless it was biological,” Tara reminded them.
There was a brief silence as they all remembered Louisiana, and how close a call it had been for every one of them.
“I’ll alert DHS,” Quinn said. “But I agree with van Halen. If they go to the considerable risk of penetrating such a secure target, why not release the weapon on the full congress? Why a small subcommittee meeting?”
“A statement?” Darcy suggested. “It is the Defense subcommittee.”
“Aren’t they about to announce a new program to fight terrorism within the country?” Tara said.
“Not al Sayika’s style,” Kick said. “Their targets have all been high profile. And what about the nuclear trigger we’ve been looking for? Doesn’t fit.” He shook his head. “Van Halen’s right. This isn’t it.”
“Speaking of which, any sign of the nuclear trigger that was supposed to be onboard the yacht?” Darcy asked Alex.
“Nothing,” he responded. “The good news is there was no indication of any nuclear material ever being onboard. Radiation levels registered zip.”
“Are we sure it was Allah’s Paradise bringing this trigger into the country?” Tara asked.
Sitting back in the shadows, Gregg was still frowning. “You keep mentioning a nuclear trigger. What’s that all about?”
Quinn leafed through a file and walked a paper over to him. “NSA intercepted this e-mail several days ago.”
Gregg read aloud, his deep voice resonating through the room, “ ‘Zero hour approaches! The garden of paradise beckons. The trigger will arrive tomorrow. Praise God and do His will!’ ” He studied the e-mail for a moment. “What makes you think this means a nuclear trigger?” he finally asked.
Rebel responded, “Chatter regarding an al Sayika attack on D.C. has been intercepted from multiple sources lately. They’ve used dirty bombs before, in Europe and Indonesia. A triggering device is always the most difficult part to get hold of, and it would have to be brought here from overseas. It just makes sense.”
Gregg nodded thoughtfully and passed the e-mail back to Quinn. “I assume from the discussion you don’t have anything on the attack plans?”
“We’ve got a whole lot of conjecture,” Alex said disgustedly.
“But there is definitely something going on in D.C.,” Rebel said. “There have been three murders here over the past forty-eight hours, all linked to al Sayika. I think if we . . .”
Gina should have been listening, she really should. But she felt in imminent danger of overload . . . from more than one direction. She lost the thread of the discussion completely and melted into the background, trying her best to pull her gaze away from Gregg. But it wasn’t possible.
Bathed in shadows, he was the dark enigma in the room, an unmoving chiaroscuro portrait who watched the intense team discussion from his cocoon of uncompromising distance. He spoke cordially when spoken to, contributing sharp insight when asked, but volunteered nothing without prompting. He soaked up the circling activity like a black hole in their midst, a powerful, magnetic force, pulling in and gathering, but drawing awareness only through his very invisibility. You knew he was there, saw the void of his shape, but not the actual man who filled it. Not really. And only if you paid attention . . .
She shivered at the analogy. At his dark beauty. At the force of his attraction over her flesh. She wanted to throw herself into the black vortex of his power and let herself be carried deep inside him, to his very soul, and banish the pain behind his shadows.
So when his midnight blue eyes slowly turned and sought her out, snakelike in their sinister focus, her pulse took off in flight. Was he finally going to acknowledge her presence? For an endless moment, his gaze bored into her.
He cleared his throat. As though at a signal, all conversation stopped.
He looked away from her. “About this trigger thing.”
“You have an idea?” Quinn asked.
“Maybe. What if it’s not a nuclear-triggering device?” Tara’s face paled. “You mean it’s a trigger for some other kind of weapon?”
“What if it’s not a device at all?” he suggested. “What if it’s a person?” He looked over at Kick. So did everyone else.
Gina suddenly realized what he was saying. Kick was the team’s sniper.
Kick nodded. “Yup, the thought crossed my mind when I read the message, too. Sometimes they called me ‘the trigger’ in my old unit.”
Quinn, Marc, and Alex nodded along with him. They were all spec operators from way back. “So rather than a bomb,” Quinn said thoughtfully, “you’re talking a Day of the Jackal scenario.”
Gina swallowed. The assassination of the president of the United States. A terrible thought.
“You mean the trigger is some kind of hired gun? A political assassin?” Tara asked doubtfully.
“Sweet goodnight!” Rebel said, shooting straight up on the love seat. “The man that got away!”
“I actually think they got Bruce Willis in the end,” Alex drawled.
“No!” Rebel exclaimed. “I mean, on Allah’s Paradise. Don’t you remember I told you I may have seen another person onboard? While I was talking on the phone to—” She stopped abruptly. Jerked her attention to Quinn. “Someone may have jumped overboard, just before the yacht exploded. I can’t be certain. It was just a quick flash in my peripheral vision. I put it in my report, thinking he may have taken the trigger with him. But I never thought about him actually being the trigger.”
“Merde,” Marc swore.
“To take a successful shot at POTUS—the President—and survive,” Kick ventured, shaking his head, “this assassin would need mad skills.”
“Maybe he doesn’t intend to survive,” Marc said somberly.
“Or,” Gregg said into the pool of ensuing silence, “maybe POTUS isn’t the target.”
“Who else could it be?” Rebel as
ked.
He slowly turned to Gina. And pointed. “Her.”
TWENTY
GREGG sat back as everyone turned to Gina and stared. Mouths dropped open in bewilderment.
“I hope you’re not serious,” Gina choked out.
“Explain,” Quinn ordered.
But how did you explain a feeling? A feeling he’d had ever since listening via the bug he’d planted in her room at Haven Oaks to every debrief she’d been put through by STORM after her rescue? A feeling only intensified by finding that Pentagon file on her this morning—with a source code matching those on Zane’s and Jackson’s level one secure files. It had to have been the traitor responsible for all three attempts on their lives. Nothing else made sense.
Gregg spread his hands. “You think al Sayika is out to kill Gina in revenge for her escaping and sabotaging their Armageddon virus, right?”
“Not like there’s any doubt,” Kick said. “There’s a price on her head,” he reminded him. “Just like there is on mine and Alex’s.”
“And about a thousand other people they consider enemies,” Gregg agreed. “But how many of those revenge targets have they actually killed?”
“Lots,” Alex said, and ticked off on his fingers. “The Saudi princess, the French police commander, the attempt on the Swedish minister of justice . . .” He ran out of steam with a frown.
“You prove my point. None of those were for revenge. They were primary targets, high-profile public figures already in the media spotlight, killed to garner attention to al Sayika’s twisted cause. Gina is a university research scientist working behind the scenes with kids’ vaccines. Her kidnapping was never even released to the public.”
“But they did try to assassinate her,” Tara said. “You were there.”
“What if it wasn’t al Sayika behind the attempt?”
“Who else would it be?” Darcy asked. “The attackers had proven ties to the organization.”
“Yes, but they also had ties elsewhere.”
“You mean D.C.,” Quinn said, getting to his feet. Gregg could see the wheels turning. The commander was actually listening.
Gina blinked. “I don’t understand.” She looked spooked and confused.
But Gregg refused to feel sorry for her. He refused to feel anything for her. She’d lied to him. She’d sworn that he could trust her, then deliberately betrayed that trust. He could be sitting behind bars right now, his life over, because of her. He still might—if there was an al Sayika mole hidden among these people.
He reluctantly turned to her. But he couldn’t make himself meet those frightened eyes. He spoke to her lips. “What if there’s someone else with an actual motive to kill you specifically?”
She paled. “Like who?” But he got the distinct feeling she’d really wanted to say, “Like you?”
Her lips started to quiver, a trembling so subtle you had to be looking right at them to see it. He knew that quiver. Intimately. When he’d had her tied to the bed, helpless, and was about to do something that both thrilled and terrified her in equal measure, he’d learned to worship that tiny quiver of excitement.
But now it just meant terror.
With good reason.
He suddenly realized everyone was staring at him, waiting for his answer.
“Wade Montana,” Alex Zane suddenly blurted out, pacing away from the fireplace where he’d been leaning with a scowl on his face. “The ex-fiancé lives in D.C., and he can’t stay away from this case.”
“Don’t be absurd,” the redheaded FBI agent countered hotly before Gregg could open his mouth. “It’s not Wade.”
Zane jabbed his finger angrily at her. “You suspected him yourself, back in December, before you got so damn friendly with him. The jilted lover is always at the top of your list of murder suspects, your very words.”
At the phrase jilted lover, Gina’s eyes widened and slid to Gregg. This time he met her gaze, his mouth pressed thin. A frisson of tense awareness passed between them.
“You can’t possibly think Wade is involved with al Sayika,” she said hoarsely to him.
“His behavior is suspicious,” Gregg said. “But no, that’s not who I meant.”
“Then who?”
“Think, Gina. Back to when you were being held captive. You saw something you shouldn’t have. Someone you shouldn’t have.”
She turned inward, thinking, shaking her head slowly back and forth. “But they’re all dead. Or in prison.”
“Not all of them,” he said. Urging her to remember.
And then she did. She sucked in a soft breath. He could see the awful memory of her life’s worst moments swirl through her whole body like a whiff of poison gas. And then came the pain of realizing that the one good, kind part of that memory was in fact the most evil thing of all.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “The Voice. The man who helped me. Comforted me. He’s the traitor.”
DETECTIVE Jonas Loudon poked his head around the side of Sarah’s cubicle. “Something interesting came up in the Raul Chavez interviews. Thought you might want to hear,” he boomed.
Wincing, Sarah saved the report she was writing, glanced at the time on her computer, and looked up. “Jesus, Jonesy. It’s ten o’clock on a Friday night. Don’t you have a hot date or something?”
“This coming from Detective frickin’ Lonelyheart.”
“I’ll have you know I had a date lined up for tonight. Told the guy to stuff it.” More or less. Surely, not returning three phone messages and two texts qualified?
“Let me guess. He didn’t ask you for dinner and a movie first.”
“Nah.” She waved her hand in mock disgust. “He did. Who’s got time for all that foreplay?”
Jonesy guffawed loudly. “And me, I got the opposite problem. All the dames my age wanna play frickin’ bingo for six hours before lettin’ a man score.”
She tsked. “Getting old sucks the big one.”
“I wish,” Jonesy said in a snickering lament.
“Anyway,” she groaned, rolling her eyes. “The Chavez interviews?”
“Oh, yeah. So I went down to the limo service garage this evening. Caught a lot of the drivers waxin’ and lubin’ in anticipation of the big night, bein’ the weekend an’ all. Got ’em talking about Raul. Seems he was pretty well liked by the clients. Easygoin’, knew how to keep his mouth shut about things. Like what? I asks. That’s when they get all twitchy.”
Sarah leaned back in her office chair and swiveled it back and forth. “About?”
“Took me a while to get it out of them, but it seems Chavez drove Asha Mahmood around quite a bit. But she’s not the one who hired him.” He paused for dramatic effect.
She bit. “Okay. So who did?”
“Her sugar daddy.”
Sarah recalled vividly the embarrassing abundance of sex toys they’d found at Mahmood’s trashed apartment. It fit.
“Her married sugar daddy,” Jonesy continued before she could comment. “Who’s supposedly some bigwig—wait for it—up on the Hill.”
She stopped swiveling. “The Hill? As in Capitol Hill? A congressman?”
He shrugged expansively. “Or a senator, or aide, or hell, the vice president. No one knew for sure. Could be the frickin’ janitor, for all the conjecture. Except—”
Excitement began to buzz through her. “Except janitors don’t have the kind of cash it takes to hire limos for their mistresses.”
“Cash being the operative word.”
Her excitement deflated. “Damn. No credit card receipts?”
Jonesy shook his head. “No paper trail at all. The man has obviously done this before. Or—”
“Or . . .” Sarah suddenly recalled the very large campaign contribution from the Mahmood cousins’ joint account to a certain Louisiana congressman. Oh, yeah. Gotcha. “Or the bastard has a lot more to hide than just a cheating dick.”
“I hope you don’t mind sharing a room,” Rebel asked, glancing over at Gina, who was arranging her
few things in a dresser drawer in their room at the Watergate.
The other woman looked up and smiled. “Not at all. It’ll be great to catch up. I haven’t seen you since . . . um, you moved down to Norfolk.”
Rebel’s mouth curved. Gina should be a diplomat. “You mean since I grew a pair and finally left Alex, only to sabotage myself by hooking up with Wade?”
Gina had been in bad shape when she was brought to Haven Oaks, but not bad enough that all the love triangle dramas revolving around Rebel had escaped her notice. The miracle was that they’d become friends anyway. Rebel had desperately needed the distraction, and had sat for hours with the rescued hostage, distracting her in turn from her recurring nightmares by talking nonstop about Alex, and Helena, and even Wade—after Gina convinced her she’d left him ages ago and had no interest in reuniting.
“Oh, Wade’s not such a bad guy,” Gina said now, closing the drawer. “You could have done worse.”
“Other than the fact that he was my boss and emotionally unavailable? Do you see a pattern here?”
Gina laughed and went to curl up on one of the beds. “Alex isn’t your boss,” she pointed out.
“Technically, he is. Or maybe it’s Quinn now. Whatever. Either way, he was my first official assignment as an FBI agent. My Zero Unit liaison.” An embarrassingly appropriate term. Or rather, not . . . “Though to be fair, I suppose I was even more unavailable than Wade was.”
Gina gave her a wry look. “Ain’t love grand. Always there to mess a woman up when she least needs it.”
Rebel flopped onto the other bed like a snow angel. “Amen to that.”
“So what’s going on between you and Alex? Something’s changed. I can tell.”
Pain razored through Rebel’s heart for the hundredth time that day, just as powerful as the first ninety-nine. “I slept with him last night. Finally, after all these years. And this morning, he decided he can’t be with me.” She battled back the urge to roll into a ball and cry.
“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry. How did that happen?”