Surviving the Fall

by Brittney Sahin

  “Do you live in Munich? Or are you here on business?” She stared at the thin veil of icy snow beneath her boots as she walked, doubting the man would answer honestly.

  “Business, and I also leave soon. My employer moves me around a lot.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Nothing all that fascinating. I work with computers.”

  “Yeah?” She raised her voice an octave to sound surprised. “So do I.” Well, that was her cover story, anyway. “I’m with Henderson Intel. Heard of them? We’re not that big, but we’re working on building our brand.” They were one of the agency’s shell corporations.

  “Ah. Then you are my competition. I must not reveal our secrets.”

  “Well, maybe if I tell you a secret, then you’ll consider telling me a thing or two.” She flashed him a smile.

  Gregov stopped walking and banded her waist with his long arm, pulling her close to him until her chest pressed to his.

  Alexa looked up at him, confident in how her smoky black liner played up her hazel eyes. Her brightly painted lips opened for him. As he angled his head and lowered his lips, she stepped back and chuckled. “Mm. You need to warm me up with a drink, first.” She raised her shoulder and winked at him, but he pulled her back, tugging at her arm, jerking her sharp against him.

  “You’re naughty, and I like it,” he growled.

  “Feckin’ wanker,” Matt said into her ear, and Alexa pressed her lips together instead of physically responding to Matt’s insults.

  Gregov tipped his head to the left, and Alexa glanced over at the double glass doors. She hadn’t realized that they’d stopped in front of his hotel. That wasn’t like her—she was accustomed to noticing every little detail.

  “This is me,” he said in a low voice.

  Great . . .

  Once Alexa and Gregov reached his massive suite, he started straight for the small bar alongside the wall opposite of the living area, which had a sofa, TV, and desk. A desk with no computer. Damn.

  “I’d like something strong,” Alexa said from behind as she continued to observe the room. If she couldn’t get her hands on the computer, the mission would be a bust. His laptop would probably be in the safe, she decided, trying to calm the worry that had started to pull at her. The safes at the hotel required a palm scan, but Matt and Xander were in position, and they’d be able to help her lug the Russian into the bedroom when it was time.

  “So, Boris . . .”

  He was standing next to her now, and he smoothed a hand through her hair before gently pulling at the tips.

  Oh, shit. Not the wig. “You like it rough, huh?” She tried to ignore the impulse to swallow. Without giving her a chance to react, Gregov’s mouth moved in. His lips slammed against hers, sloppy and wet. He smeared her lipstick as she fumbled around deep into her coat pocket for the needle. She allowed his tongue to intrude inside her mouth. God, the things she did for this job.

  A moment later, he pulled his lips from hers and took a step back as she attempted to gain her footing . . . her fingers finally wrapped around the needle.

  “You gonna lasso me in or what?” Her voice was like a soft hiss, and he lunged for her again, grabbing her hips, pressing his body flush against hers—right where she wanted him.

  She snaked one hand up to his head as he kissed her. “Mm,” she murmured against his lips as she brought her other hand up and around to his neck.

  She pricked him with the needle, and he pulled away, a big hand shooting to the side of his neck. “What the . . .?” His brows pinched together as he dropped to his knees in one fast movement, looking up at her in a daze.

  She stepped back when his eyes shut and he fell face forward to land at her feet.

  “He’s out,” she informed her partners as she stared at Gregov’s motionless body.

  “Be there in a minute,” Matt responded in her ear.

  She started to search the room, rifling through his luggage and finding nothing but a string of unused condoms. “Ugh. Well, at least he was prepared. Lots of rubbers.”

  “You could still have your way with the cowboy, if you’d like,” Matt teased in her ear. “Another snog.”

  Alexa shook her head at his comment and tried to flush away the memory of the kiss with Gregov, a man she’d been tracking for over a year now. A man she hoped to hell her lips never had to touch again.

  “Oh come on, Alexa, I thought that was a pretty good comeback of mine, especially after your comment in the van. Long black hair would look bloody awful on me.” Despite being the agent runner, and the man in charge, Matt had a sense of humor, and it helped keep Alexa a bit grounded, at times. Going on missions, always focused on the mark, it could make things dark. Morbid.

  Alexa laughed. “I don’t know. I think you’d look utterly smashing.”

  “Huh. We can’t all look like models like you and pretty boy Xander, here,” Matt said.

  “Shut up, you git,” Xander answered, and Alexa could visualize the grin spreading across Xander’s face. Of course, Matt was far from bad looking. If he wasn’t her boss, and maybe in another life—she would have hooked up with him in a heartbeat.

  “Would you two stop playing around and get your arses up here? We’ve only got two hours before he wakes.” Alexa kneeled in front of the safe and eyed the palm scan. “Maybe even less. He’s a big bugger.”

  “Outside the door, love,” Xander said a moment later.

  She pressed off her knees. “Coming.” Alexa made her way back to the suite’s door and swung it open.

  Xander nodded at her with approval of a job well done as he and Matt entered the room.

  “Now help me drag his heavy arse to the safe,” Alexa said as she squatted by the body, reaching for Gregov’s ankles.

  “You know, you could have at least waited to knock him out until you got into the bedroom,” Xander said as he grabbed hold of Gregov’s forearms.

  “Sure, and have to snog him even longer?” She shook her head. “No, thank you.” Her eyes steadied on Matt’s coffee brown ones. “You gonna watch us or help?” Then she stood and stepped back, folding her arms. “Better yet, you two go ahead without me. I did the hard part. You can handle the poor bloke.” Alexa watched as Xander and Matt dragged Gregov’s dead weight down the hall, and then she followed after.

  “Let’s hope his computer is in this thing,” she said as Xander held Gregov’s hand to the palm screen of the safe.

  There was a beep followed by a click, and the door of the large safe opened. “Jackpot.” Matt rubbed his hands together and grabbed the razor thin laptop before handing it off to Alexa.

  “Thanks. Why don’t you guys set him up in the bed with the booze and undress him while I work?”

  “I don’t want to undress him.” Xander lifted a brow and stood.

  “Well, I have a lot on my plate hacking this thing,” she said sweetly, “and if we want him to think he passed out drunk after shagging me . . .” Alexa couldn’t fight the smile that spread fast across her face.

  “Jesus Christ,” Xander grumbled and bent back down.

  Alexa went back out into the living area and sat at the desk. She flipped open the computer and powered it on.

  She bypassed the username and passcode using the command prompt function, then began creating a login so she’d be able to access the hard drive. “Net user,” she mumbled while typing. Soon, she was deep in her own world, oblivious to the sounds of Matt and Xander in the other room. Her fingers moved deftly across the keys, jabbing with grace as she hacked into his computer. “I have administrative access now. I’m in. Now the hard part,” she called out to her team.

  “You think we’ll find anything useful on there?” Xander entered the room a few minutes later and stood over her shoulder, watching as she typed code.

  “I don’t have time to know what’s useful, but I’ll create a code that will allow us to copy his hard drive. Hopefully he’ll never know we were in here.”

  “How long will it ta
ke?” Xander checked his watch.

  Her fingers were moving fast, entering appropriate responses to every black box that popped up on screen. “An hour. Maybe longer. His firewalls are impressive—it’ll take me a little more time than usual to get them down.”

  “The other team will be arriving here in an hour. They’ll monitor his activity from here on out,” Xander said.

  “Okay. Good.” Alexa didn’t want to waste time in Munich. If she successfully downloaded Boris Gregov’s files, she’d want to get back to London ASAP to analyze them and decrypt as needed. There was a terrorist attack to thwart, after all.

  Xander reached into his pocket for a USB and set it next to the computer as Matt’s mobile began ringing from the bedroom. “For when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks,” she said, already back in the zone.

  Matt’s voice rang in her ear as he moved back into the living room. “That was HQ.”

  “Everything good?” Xander asked.

  “No.”

  Alexa lifted her fingers from the keys and looked over her shoulder at Matt. “What’s wrong?”

  Matt swiped a hand down his jaw, and Alexa noticed the slight tremble in his fingers.

  “What is it, Matt?” Alexa asked again, her brows snapping together.

  Matt glanced at Xander before focusing back on her. “There’s been an explosion in London.”

  Chapter Three

  A dull noise transformed into a low-pitched ringing that cut through Jake’s ears, making the veins at his temples throb.

  “Someone tried to come into the room a few minutes ago who wasn’t approved. We have Jake isolated for a reason.”

  “The nurse is new. She came to the wrong floor. She doesn’t know anything.”

  Jake needed to open his eyes, to see what in the hell was going on.

  “That had better be the case.”

  “He’s my patient—I have his best interest in mind. Don’t worry.”

  Jake tried to open his eyes yet again, but it was like trying to solve a crossword puzzle first thing in the morning before having a cup of coffee. Not going to happen.

  Not for him, at least.

  “How long until he’s awake?” The voice was familiar—low and deep, with a hint of Brooklyn.

  “Should be anytime. Everyone responds differently to the drugs.”

  Jake finally forced his eyes open, his fingers twitching at his sides.

  His vision was a little blurry at first. It took him a few attempts to adjust his gaze.

  “Shit. He’s moving. He’s waking up.”

  Slowly, he began to see more clearly. The last voice he heard came from a guy in a suit. “Jake. Jesus Christ. You okay?” His cold fingers touched Jake’s forearm, and Jake couldn’t help but retract himself from the stranger’s touch. The movement created a sharp stab in his side.

  “What’s wrong with me?” Jake winced as he adjusted to the bright fluorescent lights. “My back. My leg.” His hand lingered at his side and then shot up to his forehead, where a fresh pain radiated.

  The doctor was at his side, jabbing at a few buttons on the monitor by the bed. “I’m Doctor Richards, Mr. Summers. You were in an accident,” he answered, his voice accented—British.

  “Can you get me something for this pain?” Jake asked.

  “There’s been a steady drip of morphine pumping through your IV, but now that you’re awake, it looks like you’ll need something stronger.” The doctor tapped at a few keys on the computer that was mounted on a rolling cart near the bed.

  “A lot stronger,” Jake grumbled.

  “But first, I need you to look at me for a second.” The doctor focused a bright light in his eyes that made him blink.

  “How’s your vision? Can you see okay?” The doctor held up a few thick fingers. “How many?”

  “Three. And I can see fine,” he rasped.

  “After the accident, we put you into a medically induced coma. We worried about swelling of the brain, hemorrhaging . . .”

  Shit. “Am I okay?”

  “Yes. All of the scans were clean. You didn’t even break anything from the fall.”

  “The fall?” What kind of accident was I in?

  “There was an explosion,” the doctor answered.

  “What? How . . . where the hell am I?” Jake eyed the guy in the suit, who had stepped back to stand next to the doctor. “Who . . . who are you?”

  “What do you mean, who am I?” The man’s hand went to his chest, and the strip of lighter flesh circling his ring finger caught Jake’s eye. The man was recently divorced, maybe. “It’s me.”

  Wow, that’s helpful. Jolts of pain blanketed Jake’s body and tore through him, traveling up both his shoulders and down his arms. “I feel fucking horrible,” he growled out as the pain in his back was like knives pricking his skin. And his head—Jesus—it was as if dozens of bells were ringing while someone clapped cymbals on both sides of his skull. “I don’t know you,” Jake said to the man and studied the bandages on his biceps.

  “It appears that you were also hurt before the explosion. Tortured,” the doctor said slowly, ignoring the man in the suit. The doctor’s voice was like the slow drip of the IV—providing a slight relief, but not enough.

  Tortured? Jake looked over as a blonde woman in pale green scrubs entered the room.

  “That’s Lisa. She’s on the list.” The doctor directed his comment to the man in the suit.

  Lisa, the nurse, touched a few buttons on the machine by his bed, and then held the needle in her hand. She flicked her index finger, and a bit of water squirted from the tip. “This will make you feel much better.” Her smooth British voice was soft and comforting, but Jake figured the drugs looping through the tubes and into his IV were the true source of the butterflies that fluttered through him.

  He leaned his head back and relaxed as the last bit of pain drifted free from his body.

  “Why doesn’t he remember me? Is there something wrong with him?” the guy asked the doctor. “I thought you said his scans were clean.”

  Was there something wrong with his memory?

  Jake’s mind started to compete with the medicine, trying to stir up information, but he was searching in a dark room for the light and having no luck. “What’s going on? I remember who I am, but shit . . .” Jake’s words were slower and more drawn out as the medicine kicked in.

  “He might have some temporary memory loss. Amnesia. Maybe PTSD. Between the blast, the fall, and whatever happened to him before . . .” the doctor answered.

  That wasn’t too comforting.

  “Besides, after looking over his prior medical records, he’s had his fair share of injuries. A series of blows to the head over time can do a lot more damage than just to his memory. I’ve already called for a neural consult. But, in my opinion, he’s come out lucky after what he’s been through.”

  Lucky? He was in a hospital after surviving an explosion. That hardly sounded like luck.

  “You sure his memory issues aren’t a result of the damn coma you put him into for the last few days?” The stranger by his bed cocked his head and glared at the doctor.

  The doctor stared at Jake for a moment, his eyes scanning him, calculating.

  “No. That wouldn’t have any impact in his case.”

  The man shook his head at the doctor as if he weren’t so certain. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Jake squeezed his eyes shut, trying to rummage through the facts and images in his mind, but it was hard to focus with drugs flowing through his veins.

  His hands fisted at his sides as he dragged up the first image that popped into his head—him throwing a football down a field. Jerseys scurrying, colliding. Bright night lights shining down as he was tackled to the ground.

  “Football is all I remember. Nothing after college.” Jake forced his eyes open. “But hell, I feel a lot older than a college kid.” Although maybe that was because his whole body hurt.

  The man scratc
hed his square jaw and turned his back to Jake for a moment. “Can we have a moment alone? It’s classified.”

  Classified? Really? Jake caught sight of a bulge at the center of the man’s back beneath his blazer. Was the guy packing heat?

  “Of course.” The doctor nodded at the man and Jake. “I’ll be outside if you need me. But don’t be long—I need to run a lot more tests.”

  Knowing that classified information was serious, Jake tried to sit up. But his legs and arms were too heavy to lift.

  The man pulled up a seat as the doctor left and the chair legs screeched against the floor, grating on his ears. The man pinched the bridge of his nose and focused on Jake. Dark bags were beneath his eyes, adding emphasis to the wrinkles that spread outward from their corners. He was probably in his fifties, and Jake gathered him to be a smoker, judging by the tinge of yellow on his teeth and the thick rasp to his voice. “Jake, I’m Special Agent Trent Shaw from the FBI field office in D.C.” A knot formed in the man’s tanned throat as he swallowed a lump. He touched his jaw, caressing a fresh nick on his chin, and then said, “You’re FBI, too.”

  Jake didn’t know what to say. He needed a minute to process the news. Hell, he needed a lot more than a minute.

  “Jake?” Trent snapped his thick fingers.

  I guess that explains my weird desire to note little details about everyone.

  “Where am I? Somewhere in England, I assume.”

  “You’re in London.”

  “The last thing I remember is scoring a touchdown in college—and now I’m in London?”

  Trent’s big Adam’s apple moved in his throat again. “You haven’t been to college in a dozen years, Jake. I don’t know why you’re suppressing the last decade or so, but it’s a matter of national security that you remember, and fast.”