by Lisa Pietsch
Chris opened the folder placed in front of him. “But won't that destabilize the international arms trade and create a vacuum for even more small players to rise up?”
Young nodded. “Yes, it will.” He crossed his arms over his huge chest. “That's why we're counting on you to find information on everyone he does business with. With that, we can coordinate with other agencies and pick everyone up in one fell swoop. With all the key players out of the game, it is going to make things very difficult for the small time dealers to move anything. That should buy us enough time and enough advantage to put the pressure on Al Qaeda.” Young picked up his coffee and took a drink. “No guns. No ammo. No war.”
Brian spoke up. “This guy is in his thirties?”
Will smiled at Brian and nodded.
“He’s pulling in some serious money.” Brian set the financial analysis back in his folder. “Damn. I'm in the wrong business.”
Young paced like he always did when he was briefing. “Don’t let his age fool you. He's young but he's smart. He graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow. He's got at least five passports and twice as many aliases. He's language-smart. He speaks Russian, Farsi, Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Xhosa and Zulu that we know of. His only weaknesses are his cocaine habit and his need to have lots of women around, most of whom are paid well to be there.”
Will and Jason turned and smiled at Sarah.
She shot them a confident nod and turned her attention back to Young.
Chris looked up from the page he was reading in the folder. “If we've got all this shit on him, why haven't we just snagged him and made him disappear?”
Young's face turned serious. “Let's just say that, until recently, he's been useful and leave it at that. They're all yours, Major Hennessee.”
Vince sat back in his chair and continued the briefing seated.
Every time he made eye contact with Sarah, she looked down at the folder in front of her. She was so ashamed of what she'd done she couldn't bear to look at him. She was still pissed about the fact he'd brought a woman home with him, but then that made her no better than she'd assumed of him. The shame doubled.
The briefing ended an hour later.
“Okay, that's it, people.” Vince closed the folder in front of him. “Go home and pack your bags. We leave for Italy tomorrow at oh-seven-hundred.”
Sarah couldn't get out of there fast enough and jumped out of her seat.
Vince's large hand came down on her shoulder and pushed her back into her chair. “Stevens. You stay for a few minutes.”
Oh, man. Here it comes. Shame, shame, shame.
Sarah looked up at Vince's brown eyes. They were usually so soft and warm. Today they were hard and cold. “Look, Vince, I didn't know. I…”
“Shut up.”
Sarah was so surprised by his harsh tone and the words he used she did exactly that.
He looked at the door as it closed. He spoke once he heard it latch. “The last person who sucker punched me woke up in a hospital bed.”
Sarah shook her head. “I was out of line.”
Vince jumped in before she said any more. “You're damned right you were out of line! Do you think this is a game?” He continued before she could answer. “We're not a bunch of kids playing spies here. This is the real deal, Stevens. We've got better things to do than bust up your dates.”
“I…”
“Be quiet! If you want to stay on this team, you're going to have to learn to trust us. You need to trust me. The way you see things isn't always the way they are.”
All she could see was the grain of the wood on the conference table and she desperately wanted to be the tiny, light, speck under her hand. Shame over her behavior and humiliation over the dressing down she was receiving created a burning desire to get out of that room and as far away from Vince as she could. She slipped into military mode to escape and leave as soon as possible. “Yes, sir.”
“Now do you have anything to say?”
Yeah. Fuck you. You should have told me what was going on.
“Yes, sir. My behavior was ill informed, over-reactive and unprofessional. It won't happen again.”
And fuck you.
“That's it?”
Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Fuck you.
“Yes, sir.”
Vince leaned in over Sarah's left shoulder. His aftershave was faint, musky and delicious, and she hated that the very scent of him made her weak.
“I get that you have trust issues, but I'm not one of your ex boyfriends playing games here. I'm the one guy you can trust because I'd rather take a bullet than see you hurt. I'm your guardian fucking angel. Lucky, me!” Vince pushed his chair in with so much force it crashed and slid under the table. He didn't give it a second glance as he walked out of the room.
His sarcasm stung. She knew the punch last night wasn't about her date being blown. It was because he had another woman in his room. A brunette.
I'm a brunette. A jealous brunette.
The thing with Niko didn't piss her off nearly as much as that brunette did.
You gotta stop thinking about this man. No matter how much you want him, it's never going to happen.
Sarah drove back to her apartment and started packing.
Chapter Six
Sarah drove to the Camp to meet the rest of the team for their transport to the airport. Vince and Will were already there.
Will smiled. “Morning, pork chop.”
Vince stayed silent.
Sarah wanted to just run into Vince's arms and tell him how much she hated that he was seeing other women, but there was no way.
Not in this world. Not in this lifetime.
She smiled at Will. “Morning, Will. Good morning, Major Hennessee.”
Will squinted and shot Vince a questioning glance. Sarah’s formal address to Vince wasn’t lost on him.
Sarah assumed Will was in on everything Vince did, but he obviously wasn't aware of their exchange after the briefing.
It doesn't matter. I'm here to do a job. Getting all hot and bothered about Vince just gets in the way anyway.
Jason, Brian and Chris pulled up and the rush of activity began, transferring gear from their cars to the two big, black, Suburbans they’d drive to the airport. After they loaded all the gear and luggage, Sarah hopped into one of the Suburbans with Brian, Jason and Chris.
Chris squinted over at her from across the back seat and handed Sarah her earpiece. Once they'd tested them to be sure they were both transmitting to and receiving from each other, he spoke in Russian. “What's wrong, Sarah?”
Everything.
“Nothing.”
“You're quiet. You're never quiet. You're sitting in your seat like a dog that's been kicked. You're riding with us instead of Will and Vince. It doesn't take an intelligence analyst to see something is wrong here, so spill it, sister.”
He's got a point.
“I screwed up. I went off on Vince for busting up that date I had.”
“You mean your date with the Russian arms dealer?” Chris chuckled.
Anger bubbled inside her and she growled at Chris. “Nobody told me he was a Russian arms dealer.”
“He didn't tell you who Nikolai was?”
“Nope.”
“So you thought…?”
“Yep. I went off half-cocked and kinda told him off.”
Chris raised his eyebrows in curiosity. “Kinda, like how?”
“There may have been a one-sided physical altercation.”
“Oh, my God.” Chris sniggered into his hand. “You hit him?”
Sarah rolled her eyes.
“Well, I guess that explains his foul mood.”
“Do you think he'll kick me off the team?”
“Oh, hell no. The team is like a family - for better or for worse. Besides, he's crazy about you.”
Sarah wrinkled her brow. “Huh?”
“We're men but we're not stupid. The man
has it bad for you.”
“Can't be so bad. He had a pretty brunette in his apartment when I told him off.”
Chris laughed out loud and shook his head. “You're just as bad as he is! You need to talk to him when we get to Italy.”
Fat lot of good that will do.
Sarah's thoughts were interrupted when Jason turned around and grinned at her from the front passenger seat. “I know you're speaking Russian but all I understand are the bad words. If you aren't going to talk dirty then we'd appreciate it if you girls did your dishing in English from now on so we can eavesdrop properly.”
~~~
No one spoke until the private plane transporting the team to Italy was in the air.
Vince broke the silence. “Okay, you're probably wondering why we're staging so early for this operation in Italy. We're going to set up our base of operations on an estate near Victor's place in Sori. We'll be staying as houseguests of a member of the Gruppo di Intervento Speciale or G.I.S. We've been assured it is secure and instructed that it will serve as our base of operations while we're in country.”
Brian spoke up. “Hey, man, I know the G.I.S. is pretty bad ass, but I've never heard anything about them being paid well enough to have country estates.”
Chris chimed in. “We've had a full check done on this guy. He's from old money and had an exemplary career in the G.I.S. There's no chance he's on the take.”
Brian sat back in his seat. “Cool. What else do we know about the guy?”
Chris looked at Vince. “I just got the rip on him last night.”
Vince nodded to Chris to continue.
“They call him the Dark Angel.” Chris ran his fingers through his shiny blonde curls. “This guy has done anti-terror ops all over the globe. He's been doing this for almost thirty years now. He's very highly decorated. Whenever the G.I.S. has a tough job, they send him. They say he's the best.”
Jason took a swig of the coffee he'd brought with him. “Boss, you've been doing this a while. Have you worked with this superstar? Do we know him personally?”
Vince shook his head. “Not me. Will?”
Will shrugged. “I’ve heard stories about a Dark Angel. I thought they were just urban legend. Based on the stories, I’m pretty sure we’d know if we had met him.”
Chris' mouth curled into a wry smile. “Now that you mention it, Sarah knows him.”
Oh, come on! How many surprises do I need in a single week?
Sarah sat up straight in her seat. “Huh?”
Chris nodded to Sarah. “Seems he was in Las Vegas a little while back.”
Vince glared at Sarah. “Jesus Christ, Stevens.” He rubbed his forehead. “Will and I take off for a few weeks and you're out dating both sides in the war? Who the hell else have you got in your little black book?”
Of course. Now he thinks I'm playing both sides. Frigging great.
Sarah rolled her eyes and adjusted in her seat so she didn't have to look at Vince. “Look, Chris, I don't know where you got your information but it's wrong.” She stood and started walking to the bathroom. She glared at Vince as she walked by his seat. “I've been on one date since Hassan and you know exactly how that went.” Sarah walked into the bathroom and slammed the door before sitting down and wiping what would soon be a tear from her eye.
Chris' voice came through her earpiece. “Now wait a minute, Vince. This was before she was assigned to us, when she was still a civilian at the Camp. She met Angelo socially at Pure while she was on a twenty-four-hour pass.”
Angelo? Oh, boy.
Sarah heard Will's voice next and he didn’t sound happy. “What the hell is going on with you, man? Why are you suddenly so hard on the girl? She hasn't done anything wrong, and she's pulled your ass out of the fire more than once. No disrespect, brother, but you need to pull that stick out of your ass and cut her some slack.”
Silence. Bastard.
Sarah waited a few minutes, freshened up her makeup and then walked silently back to her seat next to Chris without making eye contact with Vince.
How did everything go to shit so quickly?
Chris gave her a sorry smile and mouthed the words, “You okay?”
Sarah nodded.
I punched a Marine in front of a woman. We may never get past that one. After all, a man's got his pride.
Will cleared his throat. “Chris, why don't you give us that brief on Bolshoi now so we can all get some sleep while we cross the pond?”
Sitting straight, Chris was all business as he rifled through the papers and folders in his briefcase. “So, from the intel we have, Bolshoi runs a maze of companies and employs upwards of four-hundred people. He's got anywhere from fifty to sixty operational aircraft at any given time and they're always moving. This guy has the largest private fleet of Soviet era cargo planes in the world.”
“How do we know he's not just moving tulips from the Netherlands?”
Chris sighed and rolled his eyes. “Good question, Brian, what with the tulip trade being so lucrative and all.”
Brian opened his hands as if to say, “it could happen.”
Jason turned toward Will. “Soviet era? Is he connected?”
Will stretched his legs. “Our contacts in the Russian Mafiya are sketchy at best, so we're just going to have to cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“We've got lots of conjecture from the analysts and allegations by the U.N. but nothing solid to go on here.” Chris looked up from his papers and spoke directly to Vince. “We're really bumping around in the dark on this guy. I'm surprised they put us on him at this point.”
Vince leaned back in his seat. “It was good intel from the case on Hassan. We can run with this. It shouldn't be a problem to nail him in a week or so. These guys never take vacations. We get Sarah in there, bug the phone lines, plant a few microphones and cameras, then cut the deal and we're out of there.”
“I don't know, Vince.” Chris protested. “There are mumblings this guy has ties to the director of Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs. That guy was old school KGB. I advise we use extreme caution in this case.”
“Thank you for your input on this, Chris, and I appreciate you doing your homework on Bolshoi but we've been given an assignment here. We can't exactly turn it down.”
“Alright.” Will walked to the bar and poured himself some coffee. “So we have an assignment and our guy has cautioned us about possible dangers. Everybody we work with is dangerous so let's just be smart and go into this with our eyes open and get the job done.”
“What else have you got on Victor, Chris?”
“Nothing you didn't already know, boss. He's got heavy connections to Ernst Wagner.”
Sarah looked up at Chris. “Who is that?”
Vince came as close to talking to Sarah as he had all day. “He was the agency's go-to guy for guns during the Cold War. The KGB used him a lot, too. If you ask me, he was the guy who won the Cold War. Son of a bitch made billions on it. He's retired in Monaco now, but no doubt has a Rolodex any gun runner would happily kill for.”
~~~
After refueling in Boston for the transatlantic flight, the team settled in, and Sarah was ready to talk again. She nudged Chris.
He stopped tapping away on his laptop keyboard and smiled at her. “What's up?”
“Tell me about the G.I.S.”
“The Italian Carabinieri do both civilian and military policing. Their training is very military and way tougher than any civilian cops get in the U.S. Their elite counter-terrorism unit is called the Gruppo di Intervento Speciale or G.I.S. If a military base is under threat, or there is a terrorist attack, or they need a bunch of bad asses to deploy as peacekeepers, they send the G.I.S.” Chris leaned back in his seat. “These guys took on the Red Brigade and Sicilian Mafia and lived to tell about it.” Chris seemed very impressed. “There are only a hundred guys in the G.I.S. They're selected only from the Carabinieri and they must have an outstanding military record and jump through some seriou
s hoops just to try out for a spot. Their training and selection process is really tough. It's like two weeks of the SEALs Hell Week.”
Brian was resting in the seat across the aisle from Sarah and perked up at the mention of SEALs. “Yeah, that ain't no frat party. Those G.I.S. guys are hard core.”
~~~
As the team began their final approach to Christopher Columbus airport in Genoa, Vince made a phone call from the cabin of the jet. He spoke in Italian, and Sarah found herself drifting into happier thoughts as she listened to the lilt and roll of his voice speaking the language so fluently.
He sounded almost happy to hear from me when I called him in Pridnestrovie. He brought me that necklace. He kissed me.
Sarah snapped out of her daydream with a bump as they landed. She heard a helicopter overhead but didn't think anything of it.
Vince stood, walked to the door of the aircraft and looked at Sarah as he opened it. “Let's see what Sarah's Dark Angel looks like.”
And there you are again, the world's biggest asshole.
The rest of the team filed out of the aircraft. Sarah was the last to step out.
The helicopter set down about a hundred yards from their plane. A man dressed completely in black stepped out. There he was, the Dark Angel. Sarah had forgotten how handsome he was. He wore black cargo pants, a black tee shirt and a black leather jacket.
What is it about all of the men in my new life? They are always in black.
Sarah had to admit, black certainly suited Angelo. He wore dark sunglasses and a Bluetooth earpiece. After the night they'd spent together in Las Vegas, meeting at a high-end nightclub and drinking champagne, it was odd for her to see him wired for the sort of work she'd never expected of him. In fact, in light of Vince's recent behavior, Angelo looked downright hot She smiled a sly grin as Angelo walked straight toward her, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the team standing with her.
Chapter Seven
He took both her hands in his. “So, this is the business that took you away from me? A showgirl or business woman I would have believed, but never a spy!” Angelo chuckled and kissed Sarah on both cheeks. “This is a pleasant surprise, cara.”