by Ronie Kendig
“No,” Téya hissed and went rigid.
But Trace slipped away into a crowd of tourists standing near the café. He worked his way through them, marking the target with each maneuver. Keeping his eyes on the target. Wishing for his team, for backup. Easing his way around the upper platform, Trace ignored the gnawing in his gut as the target closed in on Téya. He resisted the urge to rush. To move too quickly and draw attention.
The target entered the eating area but remained enough on the perimeter for Trace’s plan to work. He rushed up behind the target, slipped an arm around his neck, and applied pressure. The man struggled for a few seconds as Trace increased the pressure, not enough to kill the man, but knock him out.
As the man went limp, bystanders noticed them. Trace met the eyes of one man. “Help,” he said, wrapping an arm around the man’s shoulder and easing him into a chair. “He was sick—dizzy. Call for the police!”
Almost immediately, people surrounded them.
“I’m a doctor,” one woman said as she knelt beside the target, checking for a pulse. “What happened?”
“He felt faint. I saw him sway,” Trace said, shifting to the back of the crowd that pressed in. In a few steps, he was clear. He rushed to where he’d left Téya by the café with the yellow and red umbrellas.
But she wasn’t there.
Panic lit through him. He spun. Scanned the area. Nothing but tables, umbrellas, people, luggage, and workers. Branches rustled hard in one corner.
Trace’s heart climbed into his throat. Téya! He threw himself in that direction, skidding around the corner as Téya slammed her foot into the stomach of someone, who doubled over her leg. Caught it. Drove Téya backward.
Overhead, he heard the station call for their train. Five minutes.
Trace slammed a hard right into the man’s temple.
He flung to the side, his head bouncing off the wall. The guy dropped, stunned. Disoriented. Clumsily struggled to all fours.
Trace spun Téya toward the stairs to the platform. “Go go!”
Téya
Paris, France
28 May – 0015 Hours
The metal stairs rattled beneath her feet as Téya sped down them to the platform. Trace was two steps ahead of her, but she was gaining fast. She jumped, skipping the last three steps, and ran to the train car. Trace jolted to a stop and she bypassed him, but he caught her hand and tugged her back. She swung around and into the Eurostar train.
Trace moved with purpose through the train, though he wasn’t running any longer. That would attract too much attention. But she appreciated the decisiveness with which he moved. Shouts outside drew her attention, terror gripping her as she saw the man who’d broadsided her, knocking the hot dogs out of her hands. The fight-or-flight adrenaline coursed through her, had never really left her, actually, since the encounter with The Turk.
But there was her attacker. Almost at the bottom of the stairs.
“Trace,” Téya hissed.
He glanced back. His face darkened.
“If you’ll please have your seats,” a train attendant, or whatever they were called, glided toward them in a navy uniform and bright scarf.
Shouts outside the train stilled the commotion. Téya watched in stunned disbelief as a half-dozen SWAT officers swarmed the platform, surrounding the man who’d attacked her.
“A little excitement,” the attendant said. “Well, we’re going to be behind schedule if you don’t take your seats. Your tickets?”
Trace pulled them from his back pocket.
“Ah, yes. Business class. Right this way,” she said, guiding them farther forward on the train. Two tall, tan-ish seats with coral headrests huddled up to a table facing each other.
Trace guided Téya into the forward-facing seat and then took the rear-facing, his gaze locked on the altercation.
“How…the SWAT team?”
With a slight shake of his head, Trace let out a breath. “I don’t know.”
“Think the Parisian who helped us—”
His stormy gray eyes hit hers. “Parisian?”
“The man at the safe house.”
The side of Trace’s lips quirked up. “He wasn’t Parisian.”
Téya sat back, too exhausted to be angry or whatever it was she felt. Sorting through the emotions would be too difficult right now. “Fine. But I want answers.”
His left eyebrow winged up.
The attendant returned. “Will you be eating?”
“Yes,” Téya said, refusing to let Trace answer because he’d probably say no. “Do you have a sandwich?” She shied away from looking at him as the attendant explained their options. Téya chose the ciabatta ham sandwich. As expected, Trace passed.
Once the attendant moved on, Téya leaned back, her brain leapfrogging from each incident. The safe house. The Turk. The bell tower. The Turk. The train station. The Turk. And Trace. He knew an awful lot for him to be a Special Forces soldier and now colonel. “How did you know he was The Turk?” Maybe Trace knew too much. With his tanned face and dark blond hair, he always struck a handsome pose, but there had been something about his bearing since the first time she met him that made him seem unapproachable. Intense.
Even now as he studied her, held her question hostage within that interminable expression, the knot between his eyebrows thick and forbidding… Was Trace more than just Zulu’s team commander, a former Special Forces soldier then officer at the Pentagon? Who are you? “Why did that operative at the safe house call you Slayer?”
“I’ve seen my share of field work,” he said, as if answering her unspoken question. Now he looked sad. Or maybe thoughtful. She couldn’t tell which.
That was it? That lame answer was all he’d give her?
Right. More questions. As if what Zulu was dealing with wasn’t enough. Should she now question Trace’s involvement in everything? Something about that question roiled through her stomach. He’d led them and protected them. Gotten them to safety.
What if it’d been all part of some colossal plan?
Téya let her attention drift out the window to the blurring landscape. At night there wasn’t a lot to see but scattered lights once they left the city.
Paris. She suddenly had no desire to go back. It held no appeal anymore. Had all that really happened? The notorious assassin trying to kill her? Throwing her name to the wolves to make sure she didn’t leave Paris alive? Why? “It doesn’t make sense.”
When Trace didn’t respond, she looked at him and found his eyes closed. Disbelief speared her. Who could fall asleep that fast? He didn’t want to talk to her? Fine. She wouldn’t get answers. Just the very real threat of dying at some unsuspecting moment because she’d set off a time bomb named The Turk.
Curiosity and fear strangled her ability to sleep. She lifted the throwaway phone and went to the search engine. There she typed in The Turk. Scanned the results. Most were about a chess robot, but she noted a few conspiracy theory sites. One blog caught her attention. A woman reported having been in the wrong place at the wrong time when a man with a star-crescent tattoo descended on a quiet evening. The woman’s fiancé was murdered—shot to death. The Turk cut a six-inch gouge into her neck and left her to die.
A shadow loomed over her.
Téya sucked in a hard breath.
Trace glowered. “What are you doing?” He growled as he snatched the phone from her hand. He dropped back in his chair, eyes locked on her as he tore apart the phone. “For someone afraid of being found, you sure are making it easy for him!”
Francesca
Alexandria, Virginia
28 May – 0930 Hours
It was one thing to temporarily suspend her job. She might have broken some rules. Might have been obstinate about that. But to disrupt her entire life—phone, utilities, and her credit—was going too far. Enough was enough.
Frankie stalked into her father’s house, bypassing the kitchen, den, and bedrooms, and stormed right into his office.
&nb
sp; His graying head came up, expression startled, then he smiled. “Francesca dear!”
“Do not ‘Francesca dear’ me, Daddy.”
His smile wilted. “Excuse me?”
Being upset was one thing, but disrespect never had a place in their home. “I want my life back.” Her heart thudded with the anxiety. “Please. I get your point. You want me to leave him alone. You don’t want me digging. I get it. Okay, maybe I was even wrong to pursue it, but to get me suspended and destroy my very name with creditors and—”
“What are you talking about?”
Anger ratcheted through her. “Don’t do this, Daddy. Don’t play Top Secret ignorant with me. Please—just reinstate my utilities.” She leaned over the desk, lifted the phone from its cradle, and slapped it down in front of him.
Shock riddled his expression, and she hated it. But she’d never been so desperate. “Please. Call them. This isn’t fair.” Tears burned at the back of her eyes, but she willed them away. She’d never used them to get what she wanted before, and she sure wasn’t starting now. Francesca Solomon might be many things, but weak and silly she was not. “It’s one thing to reprimand me through work. But to shut down my whole life—I can’t get gas. I can’t even get a new car because of what you did to my credit score.”
Her father stood, a scowl digging into his handsome face. “When did this happen?”
She blinked. “Daddy.” The tears were coming, but with every ounce of her willpower, she pushed them back. “Don’t do this. Don’t play dumb with me. You know—”
“I don’t.” His chest heaved, a sign of his effort to contain his anger. Or frustration. He waved her to a set of wingback chairs sitting in the morning sunlight. “Let’s talk.”
Frankie remained where she stood. “Talk?” Was he serious? How could he not know? “You are the only person who even cared that I was tracking down evidence on Trace, so feigning ignorance is not going to work.”
Well, a few others knew, but they didn’t have the power or the means to shut down her life like this.
Or did they? Had she once again underestimated her enemy? She shoved her hands into her long black hair and trudged over to the chair and dropped into it. “You’re seriously serious? You didn’t shut down my life?”
“Why would I?” His tone bordered on preposterous.
“Because I’ve been investigating Weston.”
He went to the edge of the burgundy leather chair, elbows on his knees. “And you think because of that, I’d”—he lifted his hands in question—“hurt you like this?”
“You’re a general. It’s what you do—protect national secrets and all that.”
“No,” he said, vehemence scraping his tone. “I am your father first. Look, I won’t pretend or lie to you—I was in on the decision to suspend you.”
Frankie recoiled.
He tilted his head. “You operated beyond the legal boundaries of your job, Frankie. That puts not only you at risk but your commanding officers and, ultimately, the Air Force.” He readjusted on the seat. “I appreciate your passion to redeem my name, but”—he shook his head—“it’s not necessary.”
“It is! Your demotion hurt your reputation, it hurt your pay, it hurt Mom, and it hurt us kids. You know how hard it was to walk with my head up and continue on while the entire Misrata thing plagued our lives?”
His brown eyes held hers but he said nothing.
“But I was not going to let that disaster, that man ruin my life, too.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Is that…” He scooted to the very edge of his seat. “Is that what this is about, Frankie? You? How it affected and hurt you?”
“No!” Her heart felt as if it would burst out of her chest, startling her. That and the squeak in her voice. “Please don’t turn this on me, Daddy.”
“I’m not, Frankie, but I just do not understand your vendetta against Colonel Weston. Especially since I”—he placed a hand on his thick chest—“have let it go. Do you understand how this thing is poisoning your life? Your friendships? What about your encounter with Trace’s brother?”
Frankie swallowed. “That wasn’t fair. I had no idea who he was.”
“But you maligned Colonel Weston’s name in front of someone you believed a stranger. He was not here to defend himself, and your accusations have no foundation,” her father said, the veins in his temples bulging. “I need you to understand your actions are reflecting on me.”
Frankie straightened. “On you?” She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve heard more than once that I have a loose cannon for a daughter. My own superiors have questioned whether I am the fuel behind your fire.”
It felt as if a golf ball had nested in her throat. “I… I just want your name cleared.”
“And hunting down another officer, a very fine one, and damaging his name…” Meaning tweaked the edges of his eyes. “You know what it feels like to have your life shut down wrongly. Is that what you want done to Colonel Weston?”
“I want him to pay for what he did.”
“What if he didn’t do it?”
“He did!”
“Show me the proof, Frankie.”
She dropped back against the chair, petulant and mad. “Why do you do this? Why do you always defend him? After what he did to you?”
“What you believe he did to me. How many hearings have there been, Frankie?”
“Three.”
He held up a hand. “Three that you are aware of.”
“What—”
“How many found Trace guilty?”
She gritted her teeth.
“How many?” he repeated, his tone gentle but firm.
Her father might as well be pulling molars. “None,” she bit out.
“And you think with your limited access to the case files, to above Top Secret information that you do not have access to, that you, an analyst, can determine his guilt?”
“He was there. There was proof that he had a team in that area, and—”
“Yes, but so did three other special operators.” He pressed her fingers between his palms. “You don’t have all the facts, and you never will, to seal the case against Colonel Weston. Because it doesn’t exist. I’ve known and worked with Trace for a long time. He is not responsible for what happened in Misrata. I had the great misfortune to be attached to the situation because of my position and tasks assigned me.”
Frustration wove a tight cord around her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She wanted to lash out. Wanted to cry. Wanted to hit something. Then it hit her. “You did it again.” She groaned and pushed to her feet and went to the windows. “You turned this on me, made me look like the bad guy.”
“No, I’m only trying to get you to leave this alone.”
“Why?” She spun back toward him, surprised to find him only a few feet away. “Why don’t you care about your name and reputation? Does it not bother you that there’s no resolution? No closure for those families? For us?”
“Of course it bothers me. And my reputation will prove itself. It already has to a degree. Those who know me know I’m innocent of the charges related to Misrata. The only reason that happened in the first place was because they needed someone to blame. A scapegoat.”
“Augh!” She whipped around, stabbing her fingers into her hair, curling them into fists and letting out a groan-squeal. So incredibly unfair!
“Does…does the fact that Trace refused your attention—”
“Ugh! You have got to be kidding me.” She glared at him. Her brothers had tried to rub her crush on Trace in her face for years. She had outgrown that crush as quickly as she had her junior high training bra. “That was ten years ago, long before Misrata.”
As a family friend, Trace often hung out with her brothers. Played basketball or football. He’d been handsome and intense even back then. She’d been sixteen, wearing braces, and awkward as she stepped into womanhood. He hadn’t given her the time of day. Her crush had cru
shed her. Especially when her brothers figured out their kid sister liked their friend. They’d been merciless, taunting her.
“Yes, of course,” he said with a smile. “I admit for a few years, I’d hoped something might develop between you two.”
“It did—it’s called disgust.” She pushed her hair out of her face. “And it makes me sick to my stomach that he was right here, in our home, your friend, and then this—”
“That should be another reason you should believe he’s not responsible. Trace is not only a good officer, he’s a good friend.”
Daddy’s been drinking the Kool-Aid.
Arguing with him would only prove futile. She had to be more cautious, more secretive about her efforts to get to the bottom of this. “Look—I said I’ll back off, but I want my life back.”
“I’ll have it looked into. I can’t make promises about your job. That was out of my hands. I only advised. But I’ll get someone on the other things. Where are you staying?”
“At my house.”
His eyebrows winged up. “Without utilities?”
Frankie gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I know how to camp out.”
“You mean you were too proud to ask me for help.” He chuckled.
“Same thing.”
David
Bleak Pond, Pennsylvania
28 May – 0930 Hours
Stretched across the rear bench seat of the large pickup truck, David Augsburger placed a hand on his cast and another on the back of the front seat for balance, wincing against the potholes that peppered the road back to the farm.
“You okay back there?” his Englischer friend Tom asked, checking him in the rearview mirror.
“About as much as if someone was hammering my broken leg.”
Tom snickered. “Sorry. Road’s rough.”
Still, the leg pain was nothing compared to the hole in his heart. She hadn’t come to the hospital this time either, though he wasn’t sure why he thought she would when she’d up and left without a word. Still… “Would you mind if we made a stop?”
“Let me guess—the Gerigs’?”
“Just thought I could see how Mrs. Gerig is doing.”