CrossFire (Love & Lies #1)

by Alex Strong

  “It’s a couple hours until we’re in Everett,” he told her as they drove onto the ship and a ferry worker directed them to a lane. “With a little luck, they’ll have him by the time I get in.”

  “And what if they don’t?”

  Reid killed the engine and took her hand. “Then at least I know you’re somewhere safe, somewhere he would never think to look for you.” He kissed the hand he was holding. “Now do you want to go upstairs and see if they are serving food yet, or should we stay here and you can take a nap?”

  Jillian looked at the half-eaten bar sitting in her lap. Maybe there was something more appetizing upstairs.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Reid pulled up to the train station and left the engine running.

  “How long until we can go home?” Jillian asked.

  “If everything goes well, you’ll be sleeping in your own bed by tomorrow. Worst case, a couple of days. I just need to know that you’re safe until we have him in custody.”

  She nodded.

  “And then what happens?” she asked.

  He leaned across the seat and cupped her face. “Then I think I take you on a date that finally ends the way we want.”

  “I’d like that a lot,” she said with a smile.

  They both climbed out and Reid kissed her before letting her slip behind the wheel.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I have word,” he said, handing her his cell phone.

  “Be safe,” she said.

  “I will.” He gave her one last kiss before closing the car door and watched her drive off.

  Reid walked into the agency and found Aaron standing at his desk talking to fellow agent Gavin Maxwell, both looking defeated.

  “What’s going on?” asked Reid.

  “We received intel that Casimir was on a boat off Friday Harbor,” said Aaron, not quite meeting Reid’s eye.

  “Really? That’s great,” said Reid, pretending he didn’t already know this.

  “Unfortunately,” said Gavin, “by the time we raided it, he was gone.”

  Reid’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean? Are you telling me he wasn’t on it?”

  Gavin shook his head. “He could still be in the state, or he may have crossed the border into Canada. Relax, Jackson,” he said, putting a hand on Reid’s shoulder, “Casimir was stupid enough to show up in our own backyard. He’ll mess up again, and this time we’ll be ready.”

  Gavin removed his hand and sauntered off, having no idea what it meant that Casimir was still out there.

  “How can you have no idea where he is?” Reid growled. “He was practically gift wrapped!”

  “He was off the damn boat by the time you got to it, Jackson. This isn’t our fault!”

  Reid dropped down into Aaron’s chair. Why would Casimir leave and not take Jillian with him?

  “One of the crew members told us that after Casimir got a call from Morozov,” Aaron explained, “he took the girl downstairs and arranged for transportation off the boat.

  “Did he say where Casimir went?” asked Reid

  “He didn’t know,” Aaron said, shaking his head. “Apparently a tender came and got him and that’s the last they saw of him.”

  Reid put his head in his hands trying to think.

  “I’m sorry, man,” said Aaron, “I don’t know what to tell you. Casimir is obviously smarter than we give him credit for.”

  Reid raised his head. “There has to be a mole.”

  “No way,” said Aaron. “Our team is solid.”

  “But Casimir knows too much. He has to have an inside man somewhere. He was watching Jillian almost from the moment I met her.”

  “Who here knows about Jillian other than me? This doesn’t sound like anything from our end.”

  Reid looked up at Aaron. He was right, no one but Aaron knew about Jillian. It wasn’t possible. This was the man who had saved Reid’s skin countless times. But what if?

  “Are you sure she’s safe at your cabin?” Aaron asked.

  And Aaron was the only person who knew he had sent Jillian and her father to the cabin.

  “I don’t know,” Reid said, frowning at Aaron. “Maybe I should move them.”

  Aaron gave Reid a strange look, but before he could say anything, Director Rollins walked by.

  “There you are, Agent Jackson. I see Riker left a stack of paperwork for you,” she said, looking at Reid’s nearby desk.

  “I was just about to get started on it,” said Reid. “But first I need to run down and have medical look at my stitches. Think I might have pulled them.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she asked, shaking her head as she continued on her way.

  He mustered a smile at Aaron before striding off. But he didn’t go to medical. Two floors down, Reid requested the use of a cell phone and one of the company sedans. He needed to get to Jillian before anyone else did.

  The sun was at its highest point when Jillian pulled up to the cabin. It was small and old, but appeared to be well maintained. Her father came rushing out to her before she even had a chance to kill the engine and Jillian couldn’t remember the last time she had been so happy to see him.

  “Oh, Papa,” she said as he embraced her.

  “Jillian, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay Papa, I’m here.”

  “My Tesoro, please forgive me,” he said and Jillian realized he was crying.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, pulling away. “Forgive you for what?”

  “I hoped you would never be involved,” Jacob said with tears streaming down his face.

  The screen door slammed and Jillian looked up to see Casimir step out onto the covered porch.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Papa,” Jillian said, looking from Casimir to her father’s guilty expression, “what have you done?”

  He shook his head without answering and two armed men stepped out of the cottage and escorted Jillian and her father into the cabin’s cozy living room, instructing them to sit on the tartan couch. Another man with similar features of Casimir, though much younger, walked into the room.

  “Isn’t this a nice family reunion,” he said. Jillian was surprised when he didn’t speak with the same thick accent as Casimir. In fact, if she hadn’t been expecting it, searching for it, she was sure that she wouldn’t have heard one at all.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Normally I might be insulted,” the man said as he settled into a nearby chair, “but I imagine your father has wanted to keep our longtime association a secret from you.”

  At his words, Jacob gave a sob and wiped his cheek with the back of his hand.

  “Is this true?” she asked, looking at him, but he avoided her glare.

  “When we lost your mother, I was a mess,” he said. “I was about to lose everything, including you.” He reached for her hand without looking up, but she pulled it away.

  Jillian looked up to Casimir, leaning against the mantle, distractedly cleaning out the dirt from a fingernail, then to the other man, who was clearly amused by all this.

  “My father helped your father,” he pointed to Jacob, “get back on his feet. Helped him to bring his precious daughter home.”

  “In exchange for what?” Jillian asked. “What did you agree to, Papa?”

  “It was my position with Boeing,” Jacob said, his head hung in shame. “Specifically, the military defense sector.”

  “You didn’t?” she gasped. “Tell me you didn’t sell military secrets to these people.” But he didn’t need to answer. “Who are you?” she said to her father, who covered his face in his hands.

  Casimir, finally showing interest, gave a chuckle.

  “But how does Reid play into this?”

  “That, my dear,” said Casimir’s associate, opening his palms to the heavens, “was just fate bestowing her good fortune upon us. Thanks to an associate of mine, the name of an agent, Reid Jackson, happened to come into my possession. So I bought your fa
ther a nice house right across the street. To keep an eye on him, see if anything useful might turn up.”

  “That’s why you moved,” she said. Jillian had always assumed it was too many painful memories at the old house.

  “But when you, Jacob’s own daughter, caught the eye of Agent Jackson, well, it was like winning the lottery.”

  “And that’s how you knew to put surveillance in my house,” she said.

  The man nodded. “I always knew the day would come when you discovered your father’s true nature,” he said. “I wanted to be here first hand to see the look on your face.”

  There was a perverse pleasure in his smile, and for the first time, Jillian noticed he was wearing a wedding ring. She wondered what woman had married this man.

  “But if you don’t mind,” he said, getting up from the chair, “I think I’ll leave before things get too messy.”

  “And now what?” Jillian asked Casimir as the man walked out.

  “Now we wait for Jackson to call,” said Casimir.

  As Reid drove north, he called his own cell phone, hoping Jillian would answer the blocked call showing on her end. The call was answered, but it wasn’t Jillian.

  “Agent Jackson, I assume,” said Casimir and Reid felt his blood begin to boil.

  “Where’s Jillian?” he asked.

  “Do not worry. She is fine,” said Casimir. “For now.”

  “What do you want? Is this really about those codes?”

  “Come and join us. Then we will discuss that I want. But come alone. And I suggest you hurry, I am beginning to grow bored of this game.”

  The line went dead and Reid slammed the phone against the dash repeatedly until it finally broke. He’d have to pay the agency back for it, but he didn’t really give a fuck about it right now.

  Tossing the smashed pieces on the seat next to him, Reid pressed harder on the accelerator. He knew he was walking into a no-win situation, but he also knew he couldn’t leave Jillian to whatever Casimir had in store for her.

  Reid was on his way, but Jillian wasn’t entirely sure how that was going to help them. He had lost the element of surprise, and she was pretty sure Casimir and his men weren’t going to let him walk in here armed. It was up to her to find something, anything that might help increase their odds of walking away from this alive.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

  Casimir looked up from his phone with a raised eyebrow.

  “Viz’-mit yi-yi,” he said to the bald guard who had remained inside when the other two went outside to wait for Reid.

  Baldie led her through the kitchen and into a small bathroom that had no window.

  “Go fast,” he said in stuttered English.

  Jillian closed the door behind her and quietly turned the lock, if only for a false sense of security, and looked through the cabinet. Everything in it was what you’d expect to find in a bathroom, and even then there wasn’t much. It didn’t take long to realize nothing here would be useful. She stood up and considered what she knew about Reid. With an occupation like his, surely he was prepared for anything, had a weapon stashed everywhere.

  A pounding at the door made her jump.

  “Hurry,” said Baldie from the other side of it.

  Jillian sighed. So much for her bright idea. She flushed the toilet for good measure and walked over to the sink, turning on the faucet. Needing a minute to brace herself before facing Casimir and her father again, Jillian gripped the small counter and heaved a sigh. As she put all her weight against the vanity, what she thought was a false drawer front, previously immovable, now sprung open a crack. She pried it open further and found exactly what she was looking for: a small-caliber handgun. With trembling fingers, she removed it and slid it into the waistband of her jeans as Baldie pounded even harder on the door.

  Jillian turned off the water and opened the door.

  “What take so long?” Baldie asked.

  “I’m sorry, I have to pee when I’m nervous,” she said, and moved back into the living room to wait for Reid and the perfect opportunity.

  Reid pulled into the driveway to see two AK-47s aimed at him.

  “Put your hands up,” a blonde-haired muscle shouted when Reid had stopped the car. Reid did as he asked. The door was opened for him to climb out while the other guy did a walk around the car, making sure that Reid had indeed come unaccompanied. When he was satisfied, he patted Reid down as predicted while the blonde kept the muzzle pointed at Reid’s head.

  “Come,” the blonde ordered when they found nothing on him.

  Jillian was feeling the loose spring in the couch when she heard gravel crunching in the driveway and her heart leapt. It had to be Reid.

  The clock over the fireplace ticked away the seconds as Jillian waited for him to come through the front door, and when he did with hands up and two gunned men flanking him, she felt defeated. What chance did her one pistol have against these men’s weapons? There was no way they were all walking out alive, if any of them.

  “Sit,” Casimir ordered from where he was still standing by the fireplace, cutting the end off of a cigar.

  Reid moved to sit next to her, but one of the other men used the end of his gun to direct him to a chair across the room where the other man had sat not so long ago.

  “All right,” Reid said as he sat down, giving a Jillian a quick glance. “I’m here. But you’re wasting your time because you’ll never get those codes, even if I could get my hands on them.”

  “This was never about the codes,” said Casimir and Jillian watched confusion come over Reid’s face. “I knew that was a lost cause once Davies went into protection.”

  “Then why take Jillian? Why come after me? Are you looking for revenge?”

  Casimir cocked an eyebrow. “You think I would waste my time on something as petty as revenge?” He sat down on the couch next to Jillian and lit his cigar. She tried to scoot away from him, but didn’t have much room with her father taking up the other end of the small couch.

  “You have something that may be just as valuable as a transponder and the codes to go with it.” Casimir puffed on the cigar before continuing. Jillian felt his arm slide along the back of the couch behind her, making her recoil, and when he exhaled in her face she turned her nose away.

  “Don’t you—” Reid started, jumping out of his chair, but was interrupted by the butt of a gun to his abdomen. Jillian gasped and Casimir laughed.

  “That is what I was hoping for,” said Casimir, leaning forward to flick his cigar on the reclaimed wood coffee table. “You see, Agent Jackson. This whole exercise has been about finding out just how much Miss Sandro means to you. How far are you willing to go to keep her safe?”

  Reid’s face went white, but Jillian still wasn’t following.

  “You won’t turn me,” said Reid. “You have to know I would never work for you.”

  “Oh, nothing as complicated as that,” said Casimir. “I do not have the patience to keep tabs on rats the way,” he looked across Jillian to her father, “Mr. Sandro’s benefactor does.”

  Baldie walked into the room and handed a hefty laptop to Casimir.

  “It is simple,” Casimir said, sliding the laptop across the coffee table towards Reid. “I want you to log into your mainframe and let me download as much data as you have access to.”

  And now Jillian understood. She was the bait. Casimir was asking Reid to trade her life for classified secrets. She looked at her father, who had already gone down this route, and then back to Reid, who appeared to be considering it.

  “You can’t, Reid.”

  Reid looked up from the computer to her and Casimir laughed.

  “How sweet,” he said. “She thinks it will be that easy, doesn’t she?”

  And now there was anguish in Reid’s eyes. Why was he even considering it?

  “I won’t let you be a traitor like my father.” But Reid was shaking his head as she spoke. “He’ll just have to kill me now.”

/>   Jillian had forgotten about Casimir’s arm behind her until it grabbed a fistful of hair. She screamed as he yanked her head back so fast she thought her neck would snap.

  Reid tried to jump up again, only to be stopped with another blow, this time to his back. He fell forward onto the ground. Her cowardly father begged Casimir to let her go, but his words were barely audible.

  “You see, Miss Sandro,” Casimir growled into her ear, “death would be a treat compared to what I could do to you.”

  “I’ll do it,” Reid said, and Casimir released Jillian. She could see blood spotting his shirt where the stitches were as he climbed back up into the chair.

  Jillian got up and walked around the table to him without anyone attempting to stop her.

  “You can’t,” she said, crouching down beside him so as not to expose the gun on her back. “I’m not worth it. And who’s to say he isn’t going to kill us all anyway.”

  Reid stood, pulling her up with him, and brushed the hair from her face. She had never seen him look so sad.

  “There are things worse than death,” he said. “And he’s not afraid to go there.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Whether we live or die, we can’t give this man what he wants.”

  “But he’s right. I won’t watch him torture you.”

  “Enough time for this touching scene,” said Casimir. “Step out of the way, Miss Sandro.”

  “Then watch my back,” she said, and had to refrain from smiling at the baffled look on his face. Jillian turned around and snatched the laptop, hugging it to her chest.

  “Jillian,” Reid sighed, clearly not happy with her action.

  “You think that will stop me?” Casimir laughed, just as Jillian had hoped. He didn’t see her as a threat by grabbing the computer, and she was able to get a couple steps distance between herself and everyone.

  “Give me the laptop before I take it from you,” he warned.

  She reached behind for the gun and pointed it right at Casimir.