“You a Hunger Games fan or something?” she asked, tired of the sound of Parker’s click-click-click against the keyboard. When he didn’t respond, she snapped a Twizzler in half and lobbed it across the room at his head. If she took a little too much joy in the way it bounced off his cheek, well, surely no one could fault her.
“What?” he asked irritably, looking up from his computer for the first time in hours.
“I asked if you’re a fan of the Hunger Games franchise.”
“No.” He looked confused for a moment, then picked up the licorice and shoved it in his mouth. “Why?”
“The cat’s name. I figured that’s where you got it.”
Parker snorted out a laugh. “Hell no, those are his initials. You’ve spent a few hours with him; you going to tell me he’s not a total pain in the ass?”
As the cat took a swipe at the Twizzler that Georgia was twirling between her fingers, she figured the fur ball had probably earned his name.
The beep came again, faster this time, if she wasn’t mistaken. “You don’t hear that?” she asked. “That beep?”
Parker tilted his head, clearly listening for the tone. “Nah. But I’ve got a lot of tech; something’s almost always beeping to let me know it needs an update or a battery is winding down or something. Just tune it out.”
Right, because she hadn’t been trying to do that for the last thirty minutes.
“Where’d you get the fleabag?” Georgia asked. Ignoring the way the cat’s ears went back, she pulled another Twizzler out of her pack, then handed it over when Parker left his desk to join her on the sofa and extended a hand.
“I don’t know,” he said, sliding his palm along the little bastard’s back. “One morning I woke up, and there was this little warm and fuzzy pressed up against my warm and fuzzies.”
Georgia smothered her grin. Why was she not surprised?
“I always assumed Ethan left him in my apartment—he was constantly telling me I needed companionship, something to keep me on a schedule of sorts.” He shrugged. “No idea what he was thinking; I kill cacti.”
“Cats are nocturnal and more or less self-sufficient.” And could be creepy as fuck when they stared at you as if they knew all your most embarrassing secrets. “He should have gotten you a dog.”
“Yeah, like I could keep a dog alive. PITA here’s only lasted ’cause he bites my toes when he’s hungry and occasionally scavenges milk out of my cereal bowl.” Parker cocked his head and sat up straight, holding out a hand before Georgia could reply. “Oh wait,” he said, standing. “I do hear that.”
Georgia slunk down in her seat, folding her arms over her chest. Oh sure. An annoying beep he didn’t hear. But the vibration of her phone, that he caught?
“That’s my phone,” she grumbled, ignoring it as it buzzed against her back pocket.
“You gonna answer it?”
“Nope.”
“Secret admirer?”
“Hardly.”
“Heartbroken ex?”
Georgia grimaced and snapped off the top of a Twizzler between her teeth. “No.”
“Liar,” Parker said, a Cheshire-cat smile splitting his face.
“Trust me, his heart’s intact.” He’d never let her get close enough to touch it, let alone break it.
“Then he’s a moron.”
Georgia glanced up, surprised at the matter-of-fact way Parker said it. Before she could recover, say something witty and snarky and put them back on even footing, a high-pitched beep cut the silence.
“That,” Georgia said, twisting away from Parker to track the noise. “Tell me you heard that. It’s driving me nuts.”
“It sounds sort of like the text alert on my phone,” he replied, standing and wandering toward the kitchen. “Where did I leave it?” Parker moved things around, looking behind the coffee maker and in the cabinets. When he pulled open a drawer, the beep sounded again, a lot louder, at the same time he said, “Ha! With the sweetener packets.”
Georgia watched as a frown descended, marring the triumphant smile. Something in his expression gave her pause. She set down the Twizzlers and stood from the couch.
“What is it?”
“A text.” Parker read it again, almost as if he expected it to change. “I think it’s from Ethan.”
“You think?” Georgia walked into the kitchen, unable to ignore the way all the color had fled from Parker’s face. “What’s it say?”
He didn’t respond, didn’t look up from his phone. A line appeared, bisecting the space between his eyebrows.
“Parker?”
He looked up but didn’t reply. Nor did he protest when she palmed the phone out of his hand. He turned, bracing his hands against the counter.
Georgia glanced at the screen and read the message from an unknown number.
01010010 01110101 01101110
“I don’t understand what this means.” The way a rigid line seized Parker’s shoulders, coupled with the way he went completely, utterly still told her she wasn’t going to like it. She hadn’t known Parker long, but she knew him well enough to know that “still” wasn’t a setting he had. Neither was silence. The guy was like electricity, a constant low hum in the background you got used to but missed the second it was switched off. No, something was seriously wrong. “Parker?”
“It’s binary code.”
Okay . . . “And?”
He turned from the counter and dragged his hands through his hair. “And it’s a message—one only members of my unit are supposed to know.” He shoved his fists beneath his armpits, as if trying to contain the need to fidget.
“What’s the message, Parker?”
He stiffened, his expression a battle of disbelief and fear.
“Run.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“What makes you think this is from Ethan?” Georgia demanded. “Parker, who else would know this code?”
He shook his head. “Just members of my unit.”
“No one else?”
“No.” He wanted to pace but settled for cracking his knuckles.
“It’s an unknown number. You’re sure this is from Ethan?”
Parker nodded. Only Ethan, or another member of his unit, would know to send that message. “But it’s incomplete,” he said. “The binary is the authentication, the way we know the message is from one of us. But there’s supposed to be more—the name of a safe house or a meeting place. This doesn’t make any sense.” Ethan didn’t do things half-assed. When it came to protocol, the man was worse than anal-retentive. He’d drilled these processes into the entire team until each of them could recite the procedures in his or her sleep. But this, this wasn’t right. What the fuck was going on?
“We’re leaving.” Georgia strode out of the kitchen, heading immediately toward her messenger bag. “Now, Parker.”
Parker followed along behind her. Something didn’t feel right. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he said, catching up with Georgia. “This isn’t like Ethan. He doesn’t operate this way. This?” Parker asked, holding up his phone. “This isn’t procedure. There’s supposed to be more. Instructions. Locations. Something.” Parker shoved the phone into his back pocket and pushed his glasses up his nose. “In the event of a threat, SOP is to either go to the location specified or wait for Ethan to provide an escort.”
“That may be standard operating procedure, but that’s not what’s happening, and I’m not taking any chances.”
“What makes you so sure this is real?” he asked, pulling Georgia up short.
Georgia spared him a glance as she removed a handgun and holster from her bag. “If Ethan had wanted you to wait, would the message have said to run?”
“No.”
Georgia nodded, slipping the shoulder holster on over her sweater and securing her sidearm.
“Maybe he got interrupted; maybe the storm interfered with cell service. I don’t know and I don’t care,” she said as she shrugged her way into her coat. “Ethan is the only
person who knows I’m here. He trusts me to get you to a safe location. So until we have reason to believe otherwise, we’re going to assume there’s a verified threat. We’re leaving. Put on a pair of boots and grab a coat.” She stared him down when he didn’t move. “This isn’t up for discussion, Parker. Ethan said go, so we go.”
“I just . . .” His thoughts were running in chaotic circles. There was only one reason he could think of that explained why Ethan would deviate from protocol. “Ethan’s in trouble; it’s the only thing that makes sense.” Sweat prickled at the back of his neck. “If his phone is still on, I can ping it, get a location.”
“Absolutely not.” Georgia started down the hallway toward his bedroom. “You need a coat, gloves, boots. Now. We’ve got to go before the weather gets any worse.”
“We need to think this through; something’s not right.” Parker followed her into his bedroom, ignoring the way PITA wound through his legs, chattering at him. “That was a group text; I could at least reach out to someone else on the team, see if anyone knows what’s going on.”
“If they’re smart, they’ve already done as the message instructed. There’s no time to talk about this, Parker.”
“Then make time!” He grabbed Georgia by the elbow and jerked her to a halt. “I don’t do this. I don’t make snap decisions, work with partial information. I’m not a field agent!” Experience had taught him, more than once, that when he acted on partial intel, when he was forced to wing it, to make a best guess, things went horribly, tragically wrong. When he didn’t have all the facts, when he couldn’t see the big picture, people died. He wasn’t a trained operator. Had no experience in the real world. He needed to think it through. He needed time. No one on his team could die. Not because of him and not for him. He needed to force everything to make sense. Ethan couldn’t mean for them to leave the loft, to head out in the middle of a severe snowstorm. He just couldn’t. “I can figure this out.”
“Hey.” Georgia shrugged out of his grip and grasped his wrist, her palm warm against his skin. “There will be time for that. I’m not asking you to make any decisions. That’s my job.” She shook him gently until he met her gaze. “Right now, it doesn’t need to make sense. We aren’t in your world; this isn’t a tactical operation. There’s no room for plans and contingencies. We don’t have to know why.” The lines around her eyes softened, anger and frustration releasing their hold on her face. “All you need to do is listen to what I tell you. This is my job, Parker, and I’m good at it. I need you to trust me,” she said, her grip tightening around his wrist. “Can you do that?”
Georgia watched him, a practiced expression on her face. Patience, it seemed, didn’t come naturally to her. But she was trying. For him.
He felt like a moth, pinned to a board but fighting for flight anyway. Could he trust her? Someone he’d known only hours? It was one more thing he didn’t understand, couldn’t analyze or quantify, but he knew the woman standing next to him, who owned a tactical situation and blackmailed him with coffee, was worth trusting.
“I can do that.” He took a deep, fortifying breath, pushing back the questions crowding out his thoughts.
“Just take one thing at a time,” Georgia coached him. “Boots, sweater, coat. Go.”
Parker nodded, sat on the edge of his bed, slipped on a thick pair of wool socks, and shoved his feet into his boots.
Georgia stood by the door, watching him the entire time. As he settled into the simple task of pulling a thermal on over his T-shirt, and then a hooded sweatshirt over that, his thoughts started to slow and reorganize themselves into something that felt familiar. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. “We need to grab my laptop before we go.”
“We’ll power off our phones before we leave, but otherwise we’re not taking any electronics.”
“I at least need to remove the hard drive. There’s too much sensitive information on there. If this—whatever it is—is legitimate, that’s what’s most valuable. I won’t leave it here for anyone to find.”
Georgia considered him before saying, “Okay. We’ll grab it. You can remove the hard drive in the car, and we’ll ditch the rest.”
“Fine.” PITA jumped up on the bed, rubbing against his thigh. “Shit, what am I supposed to do with him?”
“Unless he’s a secret government experiment I don’t know about, he stays.”
Parker opened his mouth, but Georgia cut him off. “He’s got a full bowl of kibble, cable TV, and heated air. He stays.”
“I was just going to say I could drop him off at my neighbor’s. She watches him when I’m traveling,” he grumbled as he snatched his black peacoat off the chair by the door.
“He’ll be fine, Parker.” She stood to the side, motioning to the door. “Let’s get going. The sooner we’re out of here, the sooner we can figure out what the hell is going on.”
He stepped out of his room, shouldering his backpack and reassuring himself he was doing the right thing.
“Move!” Georgia shouted, slamming him into the wall as a muted pop pop, not unlike the sound of a car backfiring on the street below, filled the loft.
Driven to his knees, Parker barely registered the sound of the mirror at the end of the hall behind him shattering.
“Stay down!”
Before he could think to gain his feet, Georgia was pushing ahead of him, charging the gunman with an angry yell.
Heart hammering, Georgia didn’t spare a second to think. She shouldered Parker to the side, using her body to block him. In the span of a heartbeat, she assessed the situation. Scant feet separated her from the masked gunman—she’d be dead before she could unholster her weapon. With no room to maneuver, Georgia did what she did best and threw herself headlong into the fight, shouting instructions at Parker and ignoring the way the skin along her ribs sang with fire.
Keeping her center of gravity low, she dropped her shoulder and plowed her way into the man blocking the hallway. Hitting him with all the momentum she’d managed to generate in the tiny space, she caught him by surprise and smashed him into the wall. Before he could recover from the hit, Georgia grabbed for his gun hand, slammed it into the wall, and drove a knee into the bastard’s balls. He doubled over with a wheeze, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second. Taking advantage, Georgia knocked the gun from his hand and kicked it down the hall and back toward Parker, whom she could see standing stock-still in her peripheral vision.
“Parker, go!” A blow to her ribs caught her by surprise, forcing the air from her lungs and setting her side on fire. Shit. Either she’d just clipped him, or her attacker had balls of steel. Lucky her. In the space of a breath, he was up, his arms around her waist and driving her into the wall behind her. Black spots danced behind her eyes as she fought for air. Hands gripped her neck, squeezing until taking a breath was next to impossible.
She stopped fighting, shoved her hands up between his arms, and drove her thumbs into the fleshy part of his eyes and digging in until he swore. His choices were easy—she was nice like that—let go or go blind. Personally, she’d just as soon drive her thumbs straight through to his brain, but apparently the bastard liked being able to see. He took two stuttering steps back, then grabbed one of her wrists, pulled her toward him, and drove her face-first into the wall. She managed to turn her head just enough to avoid breaking her nose but not enough to evade taking the brunt of the blow against the ridge of her eyebrow.
Son of a bitch.
A knee connected with her ribs, once, twice. Brutal. Unforgiving. Designed for maximum pain and complete incapacitation. The fourth strike drove the breath from her lungs, her exhalation raw and hot—like choking on seawater. The fifth tore her pride to shreds and drove her to her knees.
“Bitch,” he spat as he straightened and turned toward Parker.
Parker. Charming, quirky, doomed-to-drive-her-crazy Parker. The son of a bitch would kill him.
Get up, Georgia. Move.
She struggled to he
r knees, choking on her despair, on her fear that this time she’d be made to watch as someone in her life died. Well, fuck that. Determination flooded her, washing away the fatigue, the pain, and leaving behind the shiny patina of the certainty that Parker would. Not. Die. Not on her watch—not while there was something, anything, she could do about it. She lunged, catching the man around his knees and pulling him to the floor with her. He’d thought her weak. Beaten. Yeah, she thought as she grasped the back of his ski mask and slammed his face into the stained concrete, that was your first mistake. His second was assuming that just because he’d put her on the floor, she’d stay there.
She pushed herself to her knees, trying to move back, to gain enough room to finally draw her sidearm. Before she could take a half step, he pushed to his hands and knees, twisted, and laid a vicious backhand against her cheek, splitting her lip in the process. Driven to her ass, he was on her in seconds, pushing her to the floor and scrabbling for her holster, trying to work the tricky clasp she’d spent hours and hours learning to work until it was effortless. Second nature.
Twisting, Georgia got a boot-clad foot on his hip and pushed, twisting him off-center and knocking him off-balance. As he fell forward, she used all her energy and drove her head up, clipping his chin so hard she heard the snap of his jaw. He reeled, his blue eyes stark and striking in the otherwise sea of black. Her victory was short-lived. She’d landed a blow, but he’d come away with her gun.
She crab-walked backward on hands and knees, breath coming in short, ragged gasps, blood trickling down her chin.
She was out of space. Out of moves. Out of time.
She stared down the barrel of her own semiautomatic, unwilling and unable to believe she was about to be murdered by her own weapon. It was downright pathetic and completely unworthy of the marine she’d been, not to mention the woman she was.
Still, she couldn’t repress the flinch that escaped her when two shots sounded in the hallway.
Braced for pain, surprise seized her instead as the man above her crumpled, falling forward and pinning her legs to the floor.
Defenseless (Somerton Security #1) Page 6