Point of No Return

by Rita Henuber

  “No. Is that a problem?”

  Honey said nothing, studying his reflection.

  “Did you find anything out of line?”

  “They’re running a brothel from their housing quarters, but”—she shook her head—“other than that, nothing.”

  “What?” Paul turned on the stool.

  She turned her head and squinted. “Did you give up your sense of humor to get those stars?”

  He blew out an exasperated breath and looked away.

  She spoke to the mirror. “General, I was there a few hours. I have eight more days. If you want my first reaction it’s . . . there’s nothing there.” She wasn’t ready to share her gut feelings.

  “Really?” He didn’t seem surprised.

  She said nothing.

  “Are you in with Bristol?”

  “If you mean did he accept me doing the review, yes. Grudgingly. He has no option. If you’re asking am I going to his place when I leave here—” She tapped her glass on the bar to get the barkeep’s attention. When he turned she lifted her glass and he nodded. “Not your concern.”

  “Look . . .”

  “You look,” she said in a harsh whisper and glanced to see if the bartender was paying attention. He was busy pouring her drink. “You gave me a job. As long as no innocents are harmed or killed in the process, all you need to know is the final result.” Her tone was cold enough to chill the air. The tequila was placed in front of her and she repeated the same procedure she used with the first drink.

  Moore took a card from his shirt pocket and pushed it across the bar. She didn’t take it.

  “Tomorrow a Middle Eastern restaurant.”

  WTF? “Why?”

  “I’ve been craving couscous.”

  She blinked. “Your attempt at humor is failing.”

  “I want daily reports.”

  “You’ll get them . . . as stated in my orders. Electronically.”

  “I want to be sure you’re safe,” he said quickly.

  “Nice to know I’m so special to you.” Anger flared in his expression. Good. “If I haven’t checked in by eight p.m. assume I need help. Send the Marines. Otherwise, I won’t be meeting you like this again. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Rebecca O’Brien knew what she was doing.” He turned away and downed the rest of his whiskey. “That’s an order, Major.” He didn’t look at her.

  “General.” She waited until he faced her. “If you’ve put me in a position you don’t think I’m up to doing, remove me from the job right now. Tomorrow I will be standing tall in front of my chain of command requesting an investigation as to why you offered me an assignment you felt I wasn’t capable of carrying out.”

  “Your food’s ready,” the bartender interrupted.

  She stood and leaned close so he could catch her scent and feel her breath on his cheek. “I can offer them a good reason as to why you . . . wanted me.” She moved to look into his eyes. “You may not care about your image now the same way you did five years ago, but I can guarantee I’ll make it uncomfortable for you.” She backed off a step. “Or, stand down and follow the operating and reporting procedure outlined in my orders and let me do my job.” She put on her shades. “You mess me up with your private agenda you’ll find getting fucked by me doesn’t mean the same thing it did before, sir.” She pushed a couple of bills to the bartender, walked briskly to the pickup desk and collected her bags. The bells rattled against the door as she walked out.

  Chapter 8

  Honey was still thinking of Moore and what he was up to when she nosed the car into the garage of her Georgetown home. Obviously he had an ulterior motive or she’d be charged with violating some section of the military code for speaking to him the way she had. General I-wanna-get-in-your-pants was using her, but to what end? Couldn’t be for a promotion. He had two stars, and after that it was a matter of who, not what, you knew to get the third one. Before the garage door closed completely Cooper and Gunny clomped down the stairs from the kitchen. She’d asked the team to bunk here. The three-story Federal was big enough to house all of them and it was also a safe base to work out of. Moore and his no-team, no-backup could go to hell. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Coop and Buck were staying there, but Santiago and Gunny had opted to stay at their own places.

  She popped the trunk open for Cooper. “Briefcase is in the trunk.” She and Gunny wrangled the take-out bags.

  “I smell Mexican,” Buck said from the top of the stairs.

  “Don’t need a dog to sniff things out with you around,” Gunny shot back.

  Cooper closed the trunk and came to them holding her case. “All clear,” he said, waving the black device he’d used to sweep the briefcase. “No problem.”

  “Are you gonna stand down there and talk? Bring the food up. I’m hungry,” Buck said.

  “You’re always hungry,” Honey said and shoved Gunny in the direction of the stairs. “Move, man, I’ve been smelling that food for a while and I’m starving.”

  Upstairs they spread the boxes of food on the granite kitchen island and Honey looked around. “Where’s Santiago?”

  “Following the receptionist from Global,” Cooper said.

  “She’s more than a receptionist,” Honey said, remembering Verna’s rough appearance as she set plates, flatware, and napkins on the counter.

  “Got that right. Look at this,” Cooper called from the dining room, where he’d taken her case. Honey joined him and found her dining table littered with electronics and looking like a Global tech room annex.

  “Look.” He pointed to an open laptop displaying a grainy black-and-white video of Verna leaning over Honey’s briefcase, her hands moving over the iPad.

  “What’s she doing?”

  Cooper restarted the video and slowed it. “She’s getting access to the iPad.”

  “No way. It’s pass-code-protected. I’m sure it was locked.”

  “Watch this.” He pointed to the screen. “She presses the power button and”—Verna’s hand ran along the right edge of the screen—“runs her hand along the side. That’s a magnet in her hand. She taps the cancel button and she’s into the last app you were in.”

  A disgusted look rippled across the receptionist’s face.

  “I take it that last view wasn’t naked men or porn,” Gunny said from over her shoulder. “Either that or she plays for the other team.”

  “What were you looking at?” Buck said from the kitchen.

  Honey laughed. “The Quantico newsletter, sports page. Baseball league.”

  Gunny snorted. “Good one.”

  Honey stripped out of her uniform blouse and draped it over the back of a chair, freeing her skivvy shirt from her pants. “Did she mess with the laptop?”

  “Nope.”

  “This is good,” Buck mumbled around a mouthful of food.

  She moved into the kitchen, where Gunny stood at the counter filling his plate. “Hey, save some for me.”

  Gunny backed away from the counter, hands held high. “Don’t worry, we know better than to get between you or Buck and food.”

  “Can’t help it if I have a high metabolism.” They’d teased her many times for being able to eat as much as Buck, who outweighed her by a hundred pounds.

  “We saving any for Santiago?” Honey paused as she loaded a plate.

  “Nope.” The burn cell on the kitchen table buzzed and jittered and Gunny snatched it up, pressing it to his ear. “Yeah.”

  “Santiago,” Buck said confidently, settling into a chair and propping his blue-booted injured leg on another.

  “Anything?” Gunny listened and after a few moments looked at them and shook his head. More listening. “Okay. Tomorrow.” He deposited the phone on the table.

  Cooper joined them and Gunny recounted Santiago’s report. “The gal left Global, went to the laundry, filled her car with gas, and hit the market. Santiago’s sitting outside her town house to be sure she’s in for the night.”

&nbs
p; “Why don’t we put a tracker on her car?” Buck grumbled.

  “Dunno,” Honey said. “Verna parks in the senior staff lot. It’s surrounded with ten-foot chain link and razor. Good chance the cars are scanned as they go through the gate.

  “I agree,” Cooper said.

  “Mr. Tech Man, how about telling me about the mini NSA in my dining room.”

  Cooper, her brilliant baby-faced Marine, gave her a look and shrugged. “Ways to keep track of you and get into Global’s systems.”

  Coop was a child prodigy who graduated from MIT at nineteen and celebrated by enlisting in the Marine Corps.

  “I don’t know. Pass cards are necessary to enter most areas. That place seems impenetrable.”

  “They give you a pass card with a thumbprint?”

  “Hmm.” She nodded. “They took a handprint. I have to swipe the card and use a hand identifier for some access.”

  “Did they make you leave the card in a lockbox?”

  “No,” she said cautiously.

  “Then it’s bush league. High tech you’d have locked the card in a box and only have a key to show for it. Like NSA does.”

  “How do you know NSA security procedure?” Gunny gave him a hard look.

  Coop grinned. “They wined and dined me when I was a junior at MIT. Showed me around a couple of times.”

  “How old were you?” Honey said.

  “Seventeen.”

  Buck whistled and held his burrito in Coop’s direction like a microphone. “Tell us, what’s it like to be a boy wonder?”

  Coop ignored him. “Let me have the card. I’ll copy it and . . .” He gave her a huge grin. “Add a little virus should we need it.”

  “Speaking of what we might need . . .” She looked at Gunny, the team’s primo scrounger. Anything the team needed, he found. If not through military channels through his contacts and her money. Gunny’s cousin, a former Navy SEAL, owned a weapons and tactical gear business, giving them access to the most up-to-date equipment. She had a strong suspicion Gunny was a silent partner.

  “What we want, we have. Going to take a look-see at new gear tomorrow.”

  Buck raised his hand. “I want one of those new Barretts.”

  “Sure you do,” Gunny said. “They only cost about fifteen grand.”

  Buck’s face split with a huge grin. “That’d be the one.” The thirty-pound rifle was meant to be used fixed, on a tripod. She’d seen the big man use an older model as a handheld on more than one occasion.

  “Hello!” she said. “Hate to burst your bubbles but the job is to discover what Global is doing and report it. Not ka-boom the freaking place.”

  “Ah, Major, you never let us have any fun,” Buck said.

  Buck was the most uncomplicated human she’d ever met. Fiercely loyal, superhero strength and a sucker for kids and animals. In the field, he always had goodies for the kids. Dogs followed him. Hell, he probably had goodies for them too. He’d almost come to blows with a chopper crew when they wouldn’t let a kitten he’d rescued on board. They gave in and the kitten found a good home at base camp.

  “Santiago going with you tomorrow?” Honey asked as she went to get more food for her and Buck.

  Gunny choked and coughed. “Why’d she be coming?”

  Honey looked over and saw Coop and Buck exchange looks. So, they knew. Ah, hell. It was about time they got this into the open. She put the plates down and leaned a hip against the counter. “Everyone here knows you two are . . .” She decided on a polite term. “Making sheet music every chance you get.”

  Gunny’s jaw muscles jittered and he turned a florid shade of red. It was a few moments before he found his voice. “How long have you known?”

  Buck snorted. “The first day, man. The permanent grin on your face kinda gave you away.” Honey pressed her lips together to keep from smiling.

  “Shit.” Gunny shifted and scrubbed his hands over his buzz-cut hair.

  “We’re a team, dude,” Cooper said matter-of-factly. “We know when one of us has to take a crap. How the two of you going to keep something like that from the rest of us?”

  “We’re working in-tell-igence, remember?” Buck said.

  “Give it a rest, guys.” She’d wanted to get it in the open, not harass Gunny about it. She passed Buck his plate.

  “Ma’am, you want one of us to out, it’s me. Gloria . . . it would kill her to leave.”

  “We’ll talk about it another time. No one is going anyplace.” At least not now. Technically no rules were being broken, and as long as they didn’t have any problems, it was okay. “New subject, please.”

  Gunny dipped his head in a silent thank-you. “What’s it look like inside Global?” he said, toying with his beer bottle.

  “Like the schematics. No windows. Only exterior glass is the front entry. Some interior glass doors. A wicked strong kind of stuff. Every door I saw needs a pass card. The tech area has a double entry. The control center looks like a spy movie set. Cameras are everywhere and monitored in that room. They have vid links to field units. Bristol can watch everything in the facility from his office and a setup in the back of a tricked-out Hummer.”

  “Geesus. Overkill,” Buck said.

  Cooper grinned and rubbed his palms together. “A challenge.”

  The look on his face told her he was enjoying this. “That place is no amusement park.” She looked at each of them. “Global looks squeaky clean. If there’s a connection between that company and those girls . . . I want to find it. Coop, my man, I believe in your skills. Anything you need to make this easier, get it.”

  “Okay, time to check these dudes out on your Mac,” he said. They went into the dining room and accessed Global files, getting familiar with them and looking for anything out of the ordinary.

  After a couple of hours and coming up zip, Gunny leaned back in his chair, arms outstretched, and yawned. “I’m tired, I’m heading home. Got a long day tomorrow.”

  “And long night,” Buck mumbled.

  “Yeah.” Coop glanced at Gunny. “Better not be too tired, old man.”

  Gunny ignored the remarks and went into the kitchen. Honey gave the two her best stink eye and followed him to the kitchen. “See you and Gloria tomorrow night, here. This time you guys get the food. Don’t want to go all over looking.”

  Gunny stopped at the counter to scoop up the burn cell. “Yeah.” He fingered the take-out bag. “This place wasn’t exactly on your way home.”

  “Heard the food was good.”

  He tipped his head to the side and squinted. “Moore?”

  She nodded. She’d shared her history with Moore. Even the affair. It would have been wrong to ask the team for help without them knowing details. Soon she would have to tell them about her arrangement with O’Brien.

  “About Gloria and I. Are we good with you?”

  “As long as you two stay good . . . we’re good.”

  “Got it.”

  She hoped he did. Their relationship went south, it would be a problem.

  “Tomorrow night,” Gunny called out and disappeared down the stairs.

  “Have fu-un,” Buck called out in a girlie voice.

  She listened for the side door to close before she went to Coop and Buck. “You two lay off him about Santiago.”

  “Ah. Major . . .” Buck started.

  “I mean it,” she tramped over his words.

  “He knows we’re just giving him a hard time. He won’t get mad,” Coop offered.

  “You idiots. It isn’t him I’m worried about. Santiago gets wind of it and she will cut out your heart and feed it to you with fava beans before you know what’s happened.” She paused and leaned to get a view of Buck’s injured leg. “And you, my man, are in no condition to make a quick getaway. You will be an easy kill.”

  Looks of realization plastered their faces. They gave each other sideways glances. Honey pointed to the laptops. “Work.”

  She took a container of peanut butter ice cream to
her bedroom, stripped to her skivvies, and curled up with her thoughts about Jack. Before the girls’ rescue, she’d messaged him twice about meeting. He didn’t respond. No answer after twenty-four hours meant the other person wasn’t available. Each time, she imagined he was deep into a job. Each time had been after his family was murdered. She didn’t know anything about Jack’s background and she couldn’t interpret his thoughts and feelings. Couldn’t begin to guess why he was holed up in a cabin in the woods. She had no intention of trying. She did need to tell him about her involvement before he found out from someone else. The only way to do that was a face-to-face. Over the weekend, she’d fly to Tampa to speak with the Saunders family, and on the return, stop in Tennessee to talk to Jack.

  Chapter 9

  Jack O’Brien sat on the steps of the lake cabin running a calloused thumb over the photo of his brother, sister-in-law and niece, smiling. Happy. Cinderella’s castle in the background. He propped the photo against the porch rails. Lee and Becca were good together and great parents to Ali. A now familiar sadness rippled over him.

  He drained the beer and pushed to his feet, pitching the bottle into the bin with the other hundred or more empties. Across the lake, the sun was sinking behind the ridge and he leaned against a rickety porch support to watch.

  Loneliness tackled him like a 350-pound lineman. He’d lost his brother, his best friend and the only person he trusted. What he wouldn’t give to talk to Lee one more time.

  Or Honey. Every moment he wasn’t thinking of getting Lee’s murderer she invaded his thoughts. Since Neuberger told him she was the one coming he’d been in paranoia hell what-if’ing. If there’d been an ulterior motive behind their fuck-fests. Assessing the time they’d been together, searching for a clue she was setting him up to use as an asset. There was nothing. What he knew was she’d unleashed a primal lust in him. A lizard brain thing that made him feel . . . feel? Comfort. The beginnings of trust. He was a fucking asshole. He’d let his weakness for women put him in the middle of the mother of all clusterfucks. “Fucking. Asshole.” The shouted words skipped over the lake like a stone then bounced off the far cliffs, taunting him. He turned his frustration on the trash bin, delivering a wicked kick that sent it rolling across the porch, spewing beer bottles in its wake. His fist smashed the roof support with a hard right. A couple decades’ worth of leaf accumulation and who knows what fucking else rained down, making him look like the dirtbag he was. He swiped bloody knuckles across his shirt, fighting back grief and a bone-deep sadness that Honey had used him. He was a major clusterfucking asshole.