Full Throttle

by Julie Ann Walker

  “…obvious the scope of Winterfield’s thievery is far greater than anything we or the CIA ever imagined,” the president was saying, and Steady joined the group that had gathered near the motorcycles. He shot Boss a wide-eyed look then let his gaze slip over to the SEALs who were standing by, listening intently.

  The general caught his expression. “It’s okay, Soto. Given that these boys were responsible for securing the nukes, it’s only fair they know exactly what we’re dealing with here.”

  The nukes…

  What the press didn’t know, what no one knew, was that the CIA had discovered weeks ago that their rogue agent’s betrayal didn’t begin and end with the revelation of the locations of the black sites. There’d been a big to-do involving a terrorist group, a couple of old marine sonar specialists, the Black Knights, and the coordinates of the handful of missing pre– and post–World War II nuclear weapons sitting at the bottoms of the world’s oceans that had occurred as a direct result of Winterfield selling classified information on the black market. Leo and his men had been working tirelessly to retrieve the decades-old warheads from their watery graves ever since. And everyone had hoped that when they pulled the last weapon from the depths of the South China Sea, it would be the end of Luke Winterfield’s treasonous activities.

  Apparently not. Hue puta!

  “Understood.” He nodded, then shook his head. “And sorry, I’m coming in a little late.” He turned to the president. “Are you saying Winterfield was the one who supplied Umar Sungkar with the Intel on Abby’s security detail and their protocols?” His thoughts pinged back to his hotel room in Kuala Lumpur when he and Dan had been quick to disregard the possibility because it’d seemed so far-fetched.

  It still seemed far-fetched.

  “According to Umar’s confession,” General Fuller said. “The man claims Winterfield contacted him about Abby’s scheduled trip to Malaysia, offering him the Intel he’d need to carry out her abduction in exchange for the not insignificant sum of one million U.S. dollars.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Leo cursed, scratching at the beard covering the lower half of his face. “First that fucker reveals our nation’s black sites to the world. Then he deals in missin’ nuclear weapons. And now this?”

  “So it would seem,” General Fuller concurred.

  “The man needs to be taken out.” Boss’s massive jaw sawed back and forth. On a good day, Boss had a face only his mother—or his wife, Becky—could love. And today was definitely not a good day. His expression was the facial equivalent of a disembowelment.

  “Indeed he does,” General Fuller agreed. “But not before we know how much more information he stole and who he’s since sold it to. Which is where you guys come in.”

  “You’d like us to work with the Company on capturing him?” Dan asked. The newspapers claimed the former CIA agent had moved to a Central American country with no extradition treaty with the U.S. But the truth was, Winterfield seemed to have fallen off the face of the planet. And for weeks now, the hunt for the traitor had been the CIA’s numero uno objective.

  “Something like that,” General Fuller said. “We want BKI to find him and grab him before the CIA can.”

  Steady exchanged another quick look with Boss. And that soft rustling sound he heard was the SEALs shuffling just the tiniest bit in surprise. The only reason the president and the JCs would tap the Black Knights for this job was if they didn’t trust the Central Intelligence Agency.

  Fucking hell! This Winterfield debacle kept getting bigger and bigger every frackin’ day.

  “I’ll go after him,” Dan volunteered quietly, and Boss shot him a sharp look. “Hey,” he shrugged, “if I’m jumping back into the mission pool, I might as well start at the deep end.”

  President Thompson glanced from Dan to Boss and then over to the general. “I’m fine with that as long as Pete and Boss sign off.”

  “You sure you’re ready?” Boss asked Dan, his concerned frown causing the scar cutting through his eyebrow to pucker and turn an angry pink.

  Dan didn’t hesitate to meet Boss’s eye. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Good for you, Dan Man. Good for you.

  Boss lifted his chin in a jerky nod, and Steady figured there was a lump in the big man’s throat, just like there was a lump in his. The good Madre Maria knew it’d been hard as hell to watch Dan fall apart. But it was a beautiful thing to see the guy picking up the pieces and putting himself back together again.

  “Good.” The president clapped a hand on the general’s shoulder. “I’ll let Pete talk you guys through some of the logistics.” Then he turned to Steady. “While he’s doing that, I have a personal matter to discuss with Soto here…”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Abigail Thompson’s Townhouse

  Georgetown, Washington, DC

  Seven hours later…

  “Miss Thompson, you have a visitor,” Agent…what was his name? Gah! Abby felt awful that she couldn’t remember…called from the doorway at the top of the stairs leading from her kitchen to her basement family room.

  For two days now, she’d been sequestered inside her house. Supposedly “recovering” from her ordeal. But in reality, the White House had insisted she stay hidden away until the media’s feeding frenzy died down. Although, truthfully, she figured the press secretary really wanted to be the one to steer the conversation, make the story into whatever he felt was most palatable to the American public and most beneficial to her father’s image.

  So what else is new?

  But, you know what? It was all good. Because the last thing she wanted was a bunch of cameras and microphones shoved in her face. On the other hand, she was getting lonely holed up all by herself, no one to talk to save her mother or her sister. And only when they managed, amidst the chaos of their busy schedules, to spare Abby a quick phone call—via her new, encrypted cell phone, of course. Ugh. Would she ever get to live like a normal person again?

  No, she realized. Probably not.

  In fact, she wasn’t sure she could after all these years, entrenched as she was in “the machine,” knowing what she did about how the world worked. Sort of like Carlos after he’d finished his tour with the Rangers. He hadn’t been able to meld back into society, not after everything he’d seen and done. Not after he’d been turned into a warrior.

  Carlos…How many times had she—

  “Miss Thompson?” Agent—Sonofabiscuit! What was his name?—called again.

  “Who is it?” she yelled back, thumbing the pause button on the remote for her DVR. The screen on her television froze on an image of Modern Family’s Cam and Mitchell. The two men were sitting in their living room, doing one of their hilarious interviews in front of the camera. She’d been spinning episode after episode all day, needing something to take her mind off the horror of what had happened to those six brave souls who’d gone with her to Malaysia. To take her mind off all the terrible, terrifying things she’d seen in the jungle. To take her mind off the man she loved and what he must think of her now that he knew the truth.

  “It’s President Thompson,” the agent called down. “And…a Mr.…”

  She could hear the rumble of male voices as the agent asked for the man’s identity.

  “Abby?” her father’s voice boomed down the stairs. “Are you decent? I’m coming down.”

  Was she decent? “What the frickin’ sticks, Daddy!” she grumbled loudly, pushing up from the cushy comfort of her cream-colored sofa. “I’ve got a house full of Secret Service agents. Of course I’m decent!”

  Well, if you considered yoga pants paired with a sports bra and a tank top decent. Which she totally did. A woman should be able to lounge around her own home in comfy clothes. Am I right? Or am I right?

  She rounded the sofa as her father appeared at the bottom of the stairs, a pair of long, jean-clad legs visible on the treads behind him. As her mystery guest continued to descend, her heart leapt. Above the legs appeared a trim waist…and then a b
road chest encased in a tight black T-shirt sporting the Black Knights Inc. Custom Motorcycles logo…and then…

  She had to grab the back of the sofa, her nails sinking deep into the plush fabric. “C-Carlos?” she squeaked, her hand jumping to her throat. She could feel her pulse racing beneath her thumb, which might explain why she was suddenly so dizzy. Or maybe the room really was spinning? Was that possible?

  She knew her father walked over to her. She knew he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight. She knew he planted a kiss on her temple. But she only had eyes for Carlos, standing there on the last step, his face so…unreadable.

  What is he doing here? Why is he with my father?

  Upon landing in DC two days ago—Holy Moses, really? Just two days?—the first thing she’d said to her father was I told Carlos the truth. He deserved to hear it. And I couldn’t live with the lie anymore.

  She didn’t know what she’d expected him to say. Probably something along the lines of we had a deal or but you promised. Instead, he’d simply nodded and pulled her into his arms, kissing her temple like he was doing now. Only then, he’d begun to cry. Deep, wrenching sobs. It was the first time in her life her tough, take-no-prisoners politician father had broken down around her. Which meant, of course, that she’d turned into a big ol’ bawl-bag, too. And as they stood there, sobbing in each other’s arms, they hadn’t spoken another word about Carlos and her broken promise.

  “Biscuit,” he whispered now, using the nickname the family had given her as a baby, “can you ever forgive me?”

  Whoa. Wha—?

  That was enough to rip her eyes away from Carlos. She pushed back, searching her father’s face. Sometimes when she looked at him, all she saw was the president of the United States. But there were other times, like now, when he was just Dad. “F-forgive you for what?”

  “For making you keep that secret when it ate you up inside,” he said, his hands squeezing her shoulders. “For not seeing that, for all these years you’ve been blaming yourself for what happened to Rosa. You told Soto it was your fault? Oh, Biscuit”—he shook his head, his expression the picture of sorrow—“how could you ever think that?” Her eyes filled with tears, her nostrils flaring. “Don’t you know that if one of us shoulders any blame, it’s me?”

  One hot drop spilled over her lid, leaving a burning trail down her right cheek. No. No. “B-but I was the one who sent that text message,” she insisted, her chin trembling, feeling the crushing regret of her mistake as strongly in this moment as she had eight years ago. “I was the one who—”

  “No.” He shook her, just a little, just enough to stop her mid-sentence. “No, Abigail,” he swore firmly, his tone having turned harsh, authoritative. And there was the president of the United States. “You’re blameless here.” He pulled her in close again, hugging her tight. “Oh, baby girl, you’re so blameless.”

  No, she wasn’t!

  Now it wasn’t one hot tear, but a dozen that slipped from her eyes, soaking her father’s red polo shirt. She shook her head, her throat so full she couldn’t argue. But in her head she was screaming.

  “But if you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe him.” He let go of her to gesture over to Carlos, who was standing at the foot of the steps, his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, his chin dipped down as if he’d lowered his eyes in an attempt to give them a bit of privacy. But now he was staring at them from beneath his eyebrows.

  She gulped, shaking her head again. Oh, how she wished what her father was saying was true. How she wished it!

  Then he turned back to her, bending to kiss her cheek and whisper, “And just so you know, I approve.”

  “Wha—?” she managed to croak, running a hand under her leaking nose. She was no longer shaking her head in denial; she was shaking it in bewilderment. Approve of what? But before she could ask him, he straightened and headed for the stairs, stopping to quickly pump Carlos’s hand. Then he jogged up the carpeted treads with the quick, confident steps that only the leader of the free world could pull off. A second later, a muted snick told her he’d closed the door behind him.

  Oh, sweet Peter, Paul, and Mary. And now she was alone with the man she loved more than life itself, the man whose sister she’d—

  “It doesn’t represent your love of gardening and all things botanical, does it?” Carlos asked, lifting his chin but remaining rooted over there by the stairs. He looked good. A little tired, but clean-shaven and freshly showered and…so handsome she could barely catch her breath. Or maybe that was because her nose was all stuffed up from the Niagara Falls’ worth of tears stacked behind it.

  “H-huh?” she stuttered, completely taken aback, completely confused. Those were not the first words she’d expected to hear from him should he ever deign to be in her presence again.

  “The tattoo on the back of your neck,” he said, rocking slightly on his heels. “The rose. It doesn’t have anything to do with your profession.”

  Of its own volition, her hand jumped to cover the ink on the back of her neck, visible because she had her hair pulled into a sloppy ponytail. “M-my tattoo?”

  “Sí.” He nodded. And then, oh, jumping Jesus! He started stalking in her direction.

  One step. Two. Three in that lazy, loose-hipped walk of his. She stopped counting when he was close enough for her to feel his heat, smell the soap on his skin, hear the low murmuring sound he made deep in his chest when he removed her hand. His palm was so warm, so deliciously familiar. And his touch brought back a thousand wonderful, painful memories. She closed her eyes, and two more fat tears raced down her cheeks.

  “Just as I thought,” he said, having bent to study her tattoo. His hot breath puffed against the back of her neck causing every inch of her skin to erupt in goose bumps. “I didn’t get a good look at it in the hut, but I wondered if this twining bit of vines running up beside the rose spelled something.”

  She opened her eyes, her breath sawing from her lungs on a noisy exhale. He was right. It did spell something. It spelled…Rosa.

  “It w-was a way for me to p-pay tribute to her,” she admitted. “For years afterward, whenever I would smile or laugh or whistle or get lost in a movie, I would feel awful. Like I’d forgotten about her, even if it was only for those few minutes. And so I…” she had to swallow as more tears threatened to choke her. “I got her name tattooed on my neck. A daily reminder of her, the woman I loved like a sister. The woman I k—”

  The hand he still had wrapped around her wrist tightened. “Don’t say that again,” he warned. She sucked in a breath, her eyes snapping up to his face. It was still so…unreadable. “I don’t want to hear you take the blame for Rosa’s death ever again.”

  “B-but—”

  “I know what happened. Your father told me everything on the flight from Chicago. And how awesome is Air Force One, by the way?”

  She didn’t hear his question; she was so focused on the first two things he’d said. He couldn’t know what happened. If he did, he’d know she was to blame.

  “Carlos,” she whispered. He heart was raw and burning, like a papercut doused in rubbing alcohol. I mean, really, was she going to have to take him through it, step-by-step? Wasn’t it enough that—

  “So, then let’s move on to another matter.” He slid his hand down to lace his fingers through hers. It was so unexpected, so simultaneously wonderful and awful that she had to lean against the back of the couch or risk a very ungraceful ass-plant straight into the carpet.

  “No,” she told him, sniffling. “No, we can’t move on. Not until you tell me exactly what my father told you.”

  His chin jerked back, his brow furrowing. “He told me what really happened with the bombing.” His tone was all about the well, duh.

  Some of her tears dried up as she frowned at him. “This is one instance where you need to go into detail. Please.”

  He smiled down at her then, shaking his head. “Dios. You people and your need for details.”

/>   And it was a good thing she was already leaning on the sofa, because that smile, directed at her when she never thought she’d see it again, would have brought her to her knees otherwise. “I’m serious,” she told him.

  “So am I.” He was still grinning.

  “Stop it, Carlos,” she said. But he continued to stand there, killing her with that smile, with that dimple. “I mean it,” she stressed. “Stop it.” And maybe it was habit—because she had no right to touch him, much less slug him—but she used her free hand to swipe at his arm.

  “You stop it,” he told her, tapping her shoulder in retaliation.

  And, oh, God! It was so wonderful and so…so awful! She buried her face in her hands and that was all she wrote. The waterworks had totally and irreversibly burst the dam.

  * * *

  Steady looked down at the bowed head and trembling shoulders of the woman he loved. His heart felt too huge and too hot for the confines of his chest. She was just so sweet. Too sweet. Taking on the responsibility and guilt of…Jesús Cristo…it seemed like the whole frackin’ world. Well, that stopped. Now.

  He pulled her into his arms and, delight that she was, she struggled. For an instant. Which caused him to tighten his hold. Then, surrendering as only Abby could, so softly, so gently, she wrapped her arms around his waist, squeezing him tight, sobbing into the cotton of his T-shirt.

  “Shh, cariño,” he murmured, laying his cheek atop her head, breathing deep the smell of Downy dryer sheets and Palmer’s cocoa butter lotion. His dick twitched with interest at both her nearness and those ever-captivating smells, but he told the stupid prick—literal prick; ha!—that now was not the time. Now was the time to prove to her, once and for all, that she was not the one to blame for his sister’s death.