THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series)

by Melton, Marliss

  Only, she never seemed to get that. In her eyes, Jackson’s commitment to the Corps was a direct snub against his family. The days he’d missed with them were days he would never be able to get back. Strange, but with the benefit of hindsight and maturity, Jackson realized she’d been right all along. How could it have taken him years, on top of his wife’s senseless death—a death he had contributed to because of his workaholic lifestyle—to come to his senses?

  In one summer, his daughter had gone from a child to a woman, and he’d missed it, right along with all the months and years he would never get back because he’d been overseas. Yesterday he’d realized his daughter was practically a woman. And with Colleen dead, the only women left in Naomi’s life who could arm her with wisdom and encouragement were her two grandmothers. One was already a constant in her life; the other she saw only on vacations to Grand Cayman Island. But they were no substitute for a real mother.

  His thoughts strayed immediately to Magdalena Alexandra. Would a woman like that consider taking on an adolescent?

  Wow. He couldn’t believe he’d just thought that. Just last night he’d wrecked the woman’s rental, left a death threat, and now he was considering her as a potential mother to his child. Am I really that delusional?

  No, just desperate. Honestly, when was the last time he’d had sex? He couldn’t remember.

  Hearing the telltale vibration of feet on the wooden stairs behind him, Jackson realized Toby’d returned from his three hour quest to find beer in the blue-law state of Maryland on a Sunday. He kept his eyes closed, even when Toby’s shadow blotted out the sunlight.

  “I hope you like Budweiser.”

  Jackson cracked an eye. Today Toby’s T-shirt read: IF I AGREED WITH YOU, THEN WE’D BOTH BE WRONG. He wore his two hundred dollar sunglasses and a fake moustache.

  Jackson sat up. “I take it no one recognized you.”

  “Nope.” With a grimace, Toby ripped off the hair glued to his upper lip. “You ready for a beer?” he asked, lifting the plastic sack while stuffing the moustache in his pocket.

  “No thanks. Why don’t you check to see if our password generating program discovered Lena Alexandra’s password yet?”

  Toby reached into the plastic bag, pulled out a cold one and twisted off the top, releasing a beguiling hiss. With a long swig, he surveyed the view with evident appreciation. “Place must cost an arm and a leg,” he mused, ignoring Jackson’s suggestion.

  It was none of Toby’s business how he spent his paycheck. “Beats the hell out of the National Center for Counterterrorism,” he grated.

  “Yes, it does.”

  “I’ll be up in a bit,” Jackson hinted.

  “Sure, have a seat. Enjoy yourself,” Toby countered sarcastically. “No, thanks,” he answered himself. “I think I’ll get right down to work.” Saluting Jackson with his bottle, he turned and plodded back up the steps.

  I am a dick, Jackson realized. “Hey thanks,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Take your time, Stonewall,” Toby retorted.

  Ignoring the Marine Drill Sergeant in his head who railed at him to get down to business, he stayed right where he was until Silvia called from the sliding glass doors that lunch was ready.

  “That’s our cue, Gnomy.” The nickname Colleen had given Naomi had suited her when she was a baby and looked a little like a gnome. These days, she resembled a water nymph, all sleek lines and subtle curves as she waded out of the water.

  My daughter is almost a woman. Panic banded Jackson’s ribcage. If he blinked, would she sprout wings like a butterfly and flit away?

  “Look, Dad!” Breathless and dripping, she showed him her bucketful of treasures—colorful shells and rocks and an earring made of real gold. “See, it says eighteen karats right there!”

  “You’re rich,” Jackson affirmed. But a girl with no mother lacked the riches that mattered most.

  Over a lunch of tuna sandwiches and dill pickles, Jackson watched Toby’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he swilled down a second beer. Obviously, the ATF agent had stumbled onto something in Lena Alexandra’s laptop that amused him.

  With lunch finally over and Naomi settled up in the loft to read, Jackson made his way to their temporary office to see what Toby had found.

  “Check this out,” said the ATF agent as Jackson shut the door. Tapping a key, he enlarged a photo of Jackson as Abdul Ibn Wasi, tugging on a pulley rope. Unsettled, Jackson sank slowly into the second chair. The vixen had taken pictures of him that day, not that he needed any proof.

  “And this,” Toby added, clicking to another photo. “And this, and this, and this.” Photo after photo of Jackson filled the screen, filling him with a mix of disquiet, heightened stimulation, and self-consciousness. She had zoomed in so close that he could see rivulets of his own sweat rolling from his temple to his jaw.

  “Woman has the hots for you, Jack.”

  Toby’s assertion made Jackson break out in goose bumps. “You think this is funny?” He leveled a glare at his colleague. “I am undercover, Burke,” he reminded him, pitching his voice low so his daughter wouldn’t overhear. “No one is supposed to take pictures of me, let alone a journalist. She knows who I am.”

  “Nah, I don’t think so,” Toby refuted, unfazed by Jackson’s vehemence. “She took these pictures before she looked you up.”

  “She looked up me up on NCIC?” Jackson guessed, his stomach tightening.

  “Relax. We erased the real Abdul’s history, remember? She didn’t find a thing.”

  “But that in itself looks suspicious.”

  Toby shrugged as he clicked through a series of action shots. The photos were taken in such quick succession that they formed a kind of motion picture.

  Jackson’ face grew hot. “Please tell me she took pictures of the other guys.”

  “Just this one,” Toby returned to the main screen and scrolled up to a couple facial shots of Rupert Davis.

  “That’s the former cop,” Jackson stated, his disquiet growing. He remembered Davis asking Maggie to meet him after midnight. She’d brushed him off. Some other time.

  “She looked him up, too,” Toby disclosed. “The man served eight of fifteen years at Arlington County Correctional facility. I think he’s the reason she’s here.” Toby sat back and folded his arms across his chest.

  Jackson thought about the two times the parolees had interacted with Lena Alexandra. The first day, she’d seemed intent on getting Sulayman to interview for her book, but not so eager that she was willing to spend time alone with him the other night. “What makes you so sure?”

  “I saw his name on her email calendar. See?” He opened her Outlook calendar. On July 27th, Lena had written, Rupert Davis gets out of jail. “She obviously knows his real name,” Toby stated. “He’s the one she’s hunting.”

  “No kidding,” Jackson said, experiencing little relief in the knowledge that it wasn’t him. “I wonder why”

  “No idea. I put their names together in a search, but nothing came up. Davis is mentioned in a news article called Dirty D.C. Cops, but she didn’t write it. But his getting out of jail obviously meant something to her.”

  “Maybe our analysts can find out,” Jackson suggested.

  “I’ll request that right now.” Toby sat forward to compose an email.

  Ike had scheduled a 5 P.M. teleconference, after which time Toby would deliver Jackson back to Gateway. Jackson heaved a sigh. The weekend was getting away from him.

  Toby glanced up at him. “Have a beer,” he recommended. “Have two beers. Play a board game with your kid. Relax, Stonewall.”

  “I’m trying,” Jackson muttered. It wasn’t in his nature to relax, a fact that had driven Colleen absolutely crazy. Nor had he touched liquor since his wife drove headlong into an eighteen wheeler with a blood alcohol level of .18. Leaping to his feet, he went out into the living room and called up to the loft, “Hey, Gnomy.”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “Do you still remem
ber how to play chess?” He’d taught her several years ago while on leave from one of his deployments.

  “Of course.” Her eager face popped over the railing.

  “Is there a chess board here?”

  “Sure there is.” She darted out of sight then appeared again, coming down the spiral staircase with the board game under one arm and a grin on her face.

  You’d have thought he’d just offered to send her to Disney World. Oh, wait, he did that last year. She had gone with her grandmother and a friend while he worked.

  Colleen’s plaintiff voice railed in his head. Do you want to give up your life for your country, Jackson?

  No, he had resigned his commission from the Marine Corps to keep that from happening. Working undercover for the Taskforce was scarcely more dangerous than driving a car for a living, and yet he couldn’t shake the fear that his sense of duty would get the better of him, yet, costing him his life and leaving Naomi parentless.

  God forbid. With a private shudder, he ushered her to the table to play.

  Chapter Seven

  Lena trailed the only customer out of Artie’s and stared across the street. It was six o’clock on Sunday evening. The heat of the day was just beginning to wane. And if the official-looking sedans pulling in and out of Gateway were anything to go by, then the parolees were back from their weekend away. Finally. As much as she dreaded her face-to-face encounters with Davis, getting this business behind her was all she could think about.

  Planting herself on the curb, she watched for the return of one man in particular. Soon Abdul Ibn Wasi would be finding out that his intimidation tactic hadn’t worked. He would see that she was still here, by God, and she wasn’t leaving until she’d made serious inroads into sending Davis back to jail.

  Muhammed was the first parolee to catch sight of her as he popped out of a Dodge Charger. She raised a hand in welcome, and he shot her a shit-eating grin that mellowed her umbrage. At least some of the parolees amused her, instead of just creeping her out—or infuriating her, as in the case of Abdul.

  A dark blue Crown Victoria veered abruptly off the highway into Gateway’s parking lot. Its brake lights flared, the back door opened, and Abdul Ibn Wasi rolled up out of the back seat. Just the sight of him set her heart pounding with a heady mix of exhilaration and resentment. As he turned his head, pinning her with a glare, a high-voltage charge seemed to arc across the four lanes between them, making the fine hairs on her body stand on end.

  What? Not happy to see me? She raised her fingertips to her mouth and blew him an elaborate kiss. Kiss this, Abdul.

  Thanks to him, she had spent all morning sweeping up ceramic and glass shards and resenting the fact that now she’d have to go and buy a whole new laptop.

  At her overblown gesture, his eyes narrowed into slits. For a second, Lena quailed as she recalled his death threat. But then, with a shake of his head that was practically an admission of his guilt, he turned and stalked out of sight, freeing her to release the breath she was holding.

  Ding, ding. Round one goes to me.

  Smirking, Lena turned and marched back into the store. He would visit her tonight at Artie’s—she was certain of it. She had to ensure he didn’t tell the others who she was, especially not Davis. If he threatened to do that, she would let him know she still had pictures of him and she wasn’t afraid to publish them, unless he kept her secret.

  The others would likely visit her tonight, as well. She sure hoped so. But then she heard the muezzin wailing out the call to prayers just as it had on Friday night, and she heaved a frustrated sigh. Her next move would have to wait.

  **

  What now? Jackson asked himself as he shifted from one knee to the other while facing the mihrab. Not only was Lena Alexandra still in the area, but thoughts of her were making it difficult to follow Ibrahim’s sermon. The defiant way she had blown him that kiss made it obvious she knew he was to blame for the destruction of her rental and, therefore, the death threat, neither of which sat well upon his conscience.

  He couldn’t blame her for her fury. Hell, he and Toby had stolen the very tools of her trade. But the fact that she’d ignored his intimidation suggested she was both fearless and foolish, not to mention the most determined woman he had ever met. His and Toby’s scare tactic should have made her flee in terror. Only, she hadn’t. If anything, that kiss she’d blown him had been a smart-ass declaration of war.

  Oh, fuck, Toby had exclaimed earlier when they’d both caught sight of Schlesser’s Jeep in front of Artie’s. With Jackson in the back seat, Toby had punched a button on his radio and used a hands-free connection to call their lead for immediate advice.

  The memory of Ike’s reply made Jackson grit his teeth even now. Stay away from her, Maddox. We’re covering our asses as much as we can. For whatever reason, our analysts can’t immediately connect her name and Davis’s. Once we know why she’s got her eye on him, we’ll reassess the situation.

  Stay away from her. Right. Just the sight of her drenched in the amber rays of sunset, her hands propped on her curvy hips, and her lips quirked into a sassy smirk had driven his testosterone levels straight through the roof.

  He’d heard the men murmuring amongst themselves at the start of the service how they intended to visit her the minute it was over, and it’d taken all his willpower to block out their voices and tell himself he didn’t give a shit.

  He had a job to do, and staying focused on that job clearly required more attention than he’d mustered so far because Ibrahim was winding up his sermon and Jackson hadn’t heard a damn thing.

  “Then you,” the imam was saying, gesturing at them from the height of the tower-shaped podium, “will become his army of courageous, sacrificing, and reform-seeking people.”

  The imam was quoting straight out of the pamphlet he’d issued on Friday.

  Startled, Jackson glanced around at the men to see if they’d noticed. Given their vacant stares, it was obvious they hadn’t even read the pamphlet, much less connected Ibrahim’s words to the text in it. If Ibrahim wanted to rally an army to perpetrate some act of terror, he was going to have to do more than just preach scripture.

  As the service drew to a close, Ibrahim descended the minbar and opened the wooden worship hall doors to bid the men goodnight. Jackson rose agonizingly to his feet. He did not join the others in following Zakariya to the outer doors in the foyer. Instead, he lingered in the emptying prayer hall. Here was his chance to question Ibrahim alone.

  As the cleric pulled the doors shut, he drew up short to see him. “You are still here, Abdul?”

  Jackson turned from pretending to admire the fancy inlay in the mihrab. “Yes, Imam.” He approached the leader deferentially. “I was wondering, do you know when the Mahdi is coming?”

  “I see you read the pamphlet. Good for you. In answer to your question...perhaps he is already here,” Ibrahim stated mysteriously.

  The savior of the world was already here? “How many years before Judgment Day will he be with us?” Jackson pressed. Ike had said there were three different translations: seven, nine, or nineteen year.

  “Seven years,” the imam answered confidently.

  “Then, if the Madhi is already here, Judgment Day is very near,” Jackson reasoned.

  “Yes, very near.” The cleric gave a nod.

  Searching the man’s bright eyes, Jackson wondered what it was that he envisioned.

  “Do not be afraid,” Ibrahim soothed, laying a hand on Jackson’s right shoulder. “Allah has chosen you to fulfill his Will.”

  “Me?” Jackson’s heart gave an irregular beat. “How will I help?”

  “You will know when the time comes.”

  He was dying to ask about the Nation of Gods and Earths, but that would make him seem too inquisitive. Jackson gave an awkward bow. “Thank you, Imam.”

  “Sleep well, my son.”

  With Ibrahim’s thoughtful gaze on his back, Jackson retreated to the foyer where he found Zakariya arming
the alarm system. “Ah. I wondered if I had miscounted.” With a tolerant smile and a warm good night, the junior imam unlocked the door from the inside and let Jackson out.

  Out in the parking lot, Jackson was struck by how quiet the campus sounded. As he rounded the dormitory, he realized why. In the dark of night, the large glass windows that spanned Artie’s facade framed a scene that made his innards cramp with envy and concern.

  Several parolees were lined up along the check-out counter. Lena stood facing them, elevated by the raised platform that made her dark curls visible from a distance. Whatever she was telling the men kept them spellbound.

  He knew the feeling.

  Hovering on the edge of the highway, Jackson grappled with his yearning to join them. Was it the competition that made him burn with envy or was he merely concerned for her safety? Suddenly, the Marine in him who had never questioned orders before was seriously considering defying them.

  He knew why he should stay away: to keep Lena’s curiosity about him to a minimum, which was clearly a priority.

  But he could also think of several reasons why joining the men wasn’t such a bad idea. What if she were telling them that Abdul had terrorized her? He could deny it on the spot, offer up a credible alibi, safeguard his reputation, not to mention her own. Didn’t she realize her outrageous flirtation might incite a riot?

  If he were over there and not standing on the edge of the road like an indecisive stag, he might even discover her agenda and what it had to do with Davis.

  Oh, hell, who was he kidding? The real reason he wanted to be over there was because Lena Alexandra had raised his libido from the grave. Too bad that had no bearing whatsoever on his purpose at Gateway, which was to keep tabs on terrorism, not to get laid.

  Turning his back on Artie’s, he marched resolutely toward his dorm. It wasn’t the first time duty put a damper on his sex drive.

  **

  “So, who wants to be in my book besides Muhammed and Jamal?” Lena projected her voice so that the others could hear it. Tonight the men were more subdued, less intent on trying to impress her.