by Dianna Love
“Good, because here’s what Sabrina wants you to do. Stay with Dragan for now and pull as much intel as you can on him and the Banker. She has one shot at keeping you out of prison and it depends on your value as a snitch right now.”
Margaux closed her eyes. That was not going to happen. “That’s not a good idea.”
“It’s the only idea. Sabrina is going to tell the FBI that she’s gotten word from you that you’re insinuated with Dragan Stoli and that you have a lead on the Banker. She wants them to put an order out not to kill you.”
“I don’t have shit on the Banker.”
“Then get some,” Nick barked right back at her. “You haven’t lost Dragan have you?”
That would be one way of looking at it, but no, she’d managed to lose herself by escaping. She must not have answered fast enough. Nick continued, “The only right answer to that is ‘no, Nick, of course I haven’t lost a lead on the man everyone is looking for right now who put my neck in a noose.’”
“I know where he is.” That doesn’t mean Logan is going to welcome me back with open arms. Then there was Moose. Margaux rubbed her eyes until she saw stars.
“Then your job is to do whatever it takes to stay close to him and send intel any chance you can. If you can find out what the Banker is here for, Sabrina thinks she can parlay that into a deal.”
“Banker is definitely pulling together mercs for something and it only makes sense that the attack will be in this country.”
“We’ve got that figured. When will Dragan meet up with him?”
Logan had to locate the Banker first.
She’d have to get close to Logan again to find out if he could. But Sabrina was working for her and Margaux would not let her down. And this was her only hope to avoid getting brought in by the FBI to face charges of terrorism.
Nick told her, “Sabrina’s letting me run on my own. I’ll check my leads and see what I can come up with.”
Margaux smiled. This would be a perfect time for one of Nick’s crazy plans. She’d help him clean up any mess he made if he got her a break on her mess. He wanted to know when Dragan and the Banker would meet. She told him what she hoped would be true.
“Dragan and the Banker should have a meeting soon. I don’t know how I’ll get details to you on that, but I’ll find a way to contact you if I learn what the Banker is planning.”
“Not if, when.” Then Nick gave her a new number to use the next time.
She hung up and realized her new problem was going to be hunting her way back to the camp.
If Logan hadn’t packed up and left by the time she returned.
She wasn’t going back into the woods until she had a meal and shower. She nuked a lasagna TV dinner while she showered and dried her hair. Looked like the home was owned by a couple in their forties. Attractive pair.
Digging around in the closets, she found a half-filled bag marked for donation. The woman was short and plump, but there were male clothes in the bag. A pair of jeans with a worn knee, a faded Broncos sweatshirt and wool socks with thin heels fit Margaux better than she’d expected. His hiking boots were a half size too big, perfect with the socks.
By the time she’d finished eating and cleaned up behind herself, including taping plastic over the window in the door and wiping everything down so she left no prints, she’d also written in a backhanded style that was not hers a thank you note for allowing a desperate person to borrow their shower and food. She added that although they probably wouldn’t believe her she intended to send them money to repair the window and to replace everything she took, including the donated clothes.
Shrugging back into the heavy outdoor gear, she fired up her ATV and started back toward Camp Penance.
She had until then to come up with a perfectly sound reason for tazing Moose, stealing an ATV, running away and coming back, plus a way to convince Logan he should keep her around.
She was so dead.
CHAPTER 31
Logan stepped inside Margaux’s shack and stopped short. “I’m going to kill her!”
Nitro stepped up beside him. “You may have to stand in line behind Moose.”
“Cut him free.” Logan took in the bucket of water on the floor. A wet towel hung half off the crate and a shattered lantern spread glass across the floor. Moose’s hands and ankles were tied with a rope, then a section was used as a tether between them. Another piece of rope had been looped around his legs in a complicated figure eight crossover that prevented him from bending his knees to reach his feet and untie himself. Or to reach anything else.
She’d hobbled Moose and used a shirt to tie him to one of the metal legs on her bed.
Logan had ordered the bed bolted down while Margaux was unconscious so she wouldn’t dismantle the structure when she woke up and use a leg as a weapon.
While scouting the outer perimeter, Ty had picked up an alert from a trip wire—Margaux exiting the camp—and radioed Nitro that he couldn’t reach Moose. Nitro had told Ty to wait for backup in case the camp was compromised.
Sweat had poured down Logan’s back from worry that someone had killed Margaux and Moose.
Nitro cut the ropes on Moose then got busy cleaning up the mess. Offering the big guy a hand up wouldn’t be appreciated right now.
Moose picked up his Taser and Glock that had been left sitting next to him, then lumbered over to Logan. “There’s no excuse for this.”
Logan scrubbed a hand over his face. “What happened?”
“Remember you told me she was afraid of snakes?”
“You found one to put in here?”
“No.” Moose couldn’t look any more humiliated. “She started yelling about a snake in the room. I opened the door with both my Glock and Taser in hand. She was jumping up and down on the crate by the bed and kept ordering me to shoot the fucking snake. She didn’t have a thing on and was holding a wet towel in front of her so I thought it was for real, because she was more worried about the snake than me seeing her naked.”
Margaux had played that perfectly.
If she’d pretended to be afraid instead of pissed off, Moose would never have bought it. She’d stripped down to look as vulnerable as possible to convince him she really was panicked, but instead of crying, she’d yelled and cursed.
“I’ll track her down,” Moose offered, enthusiasm gleaming in his eyes.
“No. She took an ATV so there’s no telling where she is.” Logan called over to Nitro. “We need to pack up and move to our alternate location.”
“You want to roll tonight?”
“Yes.” Logan could take the sat call from the Banker anywhere. His gut was telling him she wanted out, not that she’d gone to bring someone back. But he’d err on the side of being overcautious this time. If he really thought she’d send someone in he’d have the men grab their go bags and head out now. Once Party Man and Angel finished checking out the satellite camp that provided another exit plan, Logan would know if anything important was missing or disturbed, like the sat phone.
Party Man came around the corner. “Got a problem, Cuz.”
Lack of sleep over two days turned Logan’s question into a snarl. “What?”
“The transport truck won’t start.”
That truck was hidden under camo tarps a half mile from the camp. “How could she have found it?”
“It looks like she went in a big loop when she left and got to the truck by accident. She probably would have taken it if we hadn’t left a tree blocking the path. I can fix it, but it’s going to take a while. Wires have been rerun all over the place and that’s just what I can tell at first glance.”
Margaux couldn’t just humiliate one of his men and steal an ATV. No, she had to fubar his best exit strategy. “How long?”
“I could get lucky and figure out where everything goes in an hour or it could take all night. Or I might get it fixed and find out we’re still missing a part.”
“What about the sat phone? Did she find either one?�
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Party Man shook his head. “Nope. Doesn’t look like she tried to find the phones or take anything else. All the ammo and weapons are accounted for. Only thing I can tell is she took one of the heavy overalls.”
Logan shouldn’t be glad the little thief was going to be dressed warm for the weather, but he was.
She was right. He was an idiot.
Nitro had the bucket full of glass in one hand and the lantern base in his other. “Still want to pack up tonight, Cuz?”
“No.” Logan gave the room another look and declared, “Besides, she isn’t sending anyone.”
Party Man, Moose and Nitro exchanged looks loaded with doubt.
Logan explained, “If she was going to send someone in, she wouldn’t have done anything but leave without touching any of the camp or she would have taken this place apart looking for the sat phone to make the call and bring someone in immediately. Dismantling the truck was to prevent us from using it to overtake her if Moose freed himself or we returned before she made it to the highway. If she wanted to give away our location, she would have taken the truck and a phone.”
Nitro brought up a problem. “She’s seen all of us.”
“I know.” Logan had made the grave mistake of underestimating her. “Moose and I’ll take the first watch, me on the outer perimeter and Moose in the camp.” He had to give his man the more significant of the two positions so he could earn his pride back.
Nitro shouldered past. “I’ll get dinner going, then Angel and I’ll take second watch.”
Party Man followed him, muttering, “I’m going to need Ty with me and a spotlight so I can see.”
By the time Logan walked the outer security zone for eight hours, he was feeling more like a seventy-four-year-old man instead of thirty-four. He was fatigued and his body was still aching from his fun little vacation in the jungle. He trudged back through the woods, ready to climb in his sleeping bag and crash hard for four hours. Give him that and he’d make another week on his feet.
Nitro came up to Logan, who expected his man to lift his chin in acknowledgement on the way to take his shift, not for Nitro to say, “Cuz, your sleeping bag’s gone.”
Logan didn’t have the energy to get pissed. “She took my bag.”
“Looks like.”
“Screw it. I’ll sleep in the shack.” Logan and his men slept outside where they could better hear an approach.
Angel strolled up to them with an M4 carbine cradled in his arm. “Everything set?”
Logan kept his voice low. “I just double checked the perimeter. You both know what to do if we get an intruder tonight.”
“Oh, yes,” Nitro assured him. Built with compact muscle, his easygoing smile had caused more than one enemy to underestimate him. Nitro had gone to school in Boston and college in the UK when his parents divorced. He was former SBS, or Special Boat Service, an arm of the UK Special Forces and considered the UK equivalent of the US Navy SEALs.
“Ten four, Cuz.” Angel wore a skull cap over his ears and had three days of beard growth. His eyes took on a hard glint that too many missed because of the black, curly lashes.
You only crossed him once.
Logan dismissed them and walked on to the infirmary shack. Moose was already snoring in his bag. The last time Logan had checked on Party Man, his resident Mr. Fix It was neck deep in the truck’s engine compartment. Ty had crashed on the front seat.
A replacement lantern lit the room when Logan stepped into the building. He peeled down to his boxers, turned off the lantern and landed face down on the bed.
That smelled like Margaux. Son-of-a-bitch.
Just that one whiff and his cock stirred.
But not enough to deny him the sleep his body was demanding. He just needed a couple of hours to ...
Margaux danced through the dark mist, smiling and laughing. He was back in Paris with her spread across the soft white sheets of the bed they’d spent hours frolicking in. The setting sun cast a glow over her nude body.
She called to him to bring her some wine.
Everything replayed perfectly. He strolled over to open another bottle of wine, his mind tinkering with the idea of keeping her.
She tossed a pair of silk underwear and hit him in the head, laughing. “You’re too fucking slow.”
“You liked that a little while ago.”
More of her throaty laugh.
He chuckled and poured her a glass of something special she’d brought home from work, but when he turned to take the wine to her, Margaux wasn’t smiling. Or breathing. Her eyes stared unseeing. Blood poured from the slit across her throat.
He roared, “No!”
Someone touched his arm.
He whipped around and launched himself at the dark shadow, both of them crashing to the floor.
“Stop, you fucking idiot.”
Logan blinked awake. He knew that F bomb. Ten strong fingers clutched at his wrist, pushing his arm toward him as hard as he was forcing his hand to stay where it was.
“Logan, don’t.”
It wasn’t the order, but the hitch in Margaux’s voice that brought him to full consciousness. He had her pinned to the floor with a knife at her throat. Shit.
He stopped pressing the knife toward her throat, but he didn’t relax a muscle, not when his plan had worked so well to catch her. “You should have kept running, Margaux.”
CHAPTER 32
Sabrina looked up to see the only other agent still in the Slye Temp office besides her at 2:15 in the morning.
White Hawk had an HK 416 slung over her shoulder and was picking up a file she’d been handed in an earlier briefing.
“Heading home?” Sabrina asked.
“Soon.”
The twenty-two-year-old woman had come to her via a friend on the White House Council for Native American Affairs. He’d told Sabrina that White Hawk was an unusual case, but a natural the CIA or FBI would snag if they had a chance.
Sabrina had interviewed her.
White Hawk had some fair requirements. She did not want to leave the continental US and she had to have the freedom to go home if someone needed her.
She’d gained her skills through a family member who was part Cherokee and part Caucasian, and who’d been a Ranger in the US Army. But she had serious trust issues. She’d work with a team, but would not partner with one man or woman.
Sabrina liked to give her encouragement when she could. “I may need you if we go wheels up on short notice.”
“I don’t need much notice.” White Hawk carried the file she had with her into Sabrina’s office. She wore her dark brown hair in a a chic cut and no makeup. You didn’t need it when the genetics gods smacked you with a beauty wand.
“But you need rest.” Sabrina sat back in her office chair and her muscles squawked at having been bent over her computer for so long. “Exhaustion is part of our business, but that means we have to take advantage of downtime when we can. You aren’t doing that.”
“I will perform as required.”
“I don’t doubt that for a moment, but I also won’t use anyone on a mission who isn’t taking care of herself. Are you having problems sleeping?”
“No.”
She didn’t even hesitate with that lie.
Sabrina remembered being twenty-two and so full of herself that she knew better than anyone else. But her agents were adults and she wasn’t their keeper. She would pull someone not ready for action, but she couldn’t tell a woman who was the epitome of robust health that she wasn’t ready.
Instead, Sabrina asked, “Why that HK? Thought you were working on your handgun skills?” Because White Hawk was one hell of a shot with a rifle.
White Hawk’s eyes twinkled. Her voice was as soft as her movements. “I haven’t shot this one yet and I read that this is what they used when they inserted to get Osama. I want to know it better.”
“Take plenty of ammo.”
“I did.” White Hawk had made it to the doorway when she tur
ned back.
“Yes?”
“I have personal limitations, but they will never interfere with my job.”
“I understand.” Sabrina sensed that White Hawk might have doubts about her standing on the team. “You’re a strong addition to my team, White Hawk. You have exceptional skills, especially when it comes to tailing someone alone.”
“But we still lost Margaux.”
“We’ll find her. When we do, I’ll need you again.”
“I’m ready.” She stood a little taller with that one compliment and walked out.
Sabrina yawned and closed her computer, ready to call it a day since it was almost twenty-four hours since she’d walked in. She should take her own advice.
Her cell phone buzzed with an unknown number. Phone calls didn’t make her heart jump, but Gage’s calls were from unknown numbers. It buzzed again. He was making it tough for her to hang on to her anger, but she didn’t forget when someone betrayed her and he was standing in the way of getting answers.
She picked up the phone. “Yes?”
“Hello, beautiful.”
Her heart flipped at those two words. That used to be the first words Gage would say as soon as he called to tell her he was on his way home after a long mission.
Every time either one of them came home it had been as though they both celebrated being alive. They’d meet somewhere and make the most of every minute.
Until the UK job.
Gage kept chipping away, sure that he’d find a toehold and convince her to let him back in.
But all he had to do was tell her who in the agency had known about the UK op. She wouldn’t climb over the baggage piled between them to make this work.
He had to do his part to clear it out of the way first.
His sigh rumbled. “We have reason to believe the Russian from the Trophy Room is still alive and back in the states.”
She debated on admitting what she knew. She might have called Gage after Nick heard from Margaux if Sabrina could trust Gage not to tell the agency. But he’d made his loyalty clear. “If the Russian is alive that means Margaux—”