by Wendy Byrne
If the guy actually punched either of them, they'd probably be dead. But it was clear the big man's objective was to delay them until the others arrived. The idea the big guy's friends weren't far away made her chest constrict even more than it was already.
Jake couldn't take much more. If she had any sense, she'd get out while the getting was good. But she couldn't leave Jake to take the heat for her. She needed to do something.
Quick.
Goliath stomped after Jake in a lumbering gait. Jake did his best to outmaneuver him. Agility and quickness were on his side so far, and he was doing well at the duck-and-run game, but it was only a matter of time.
Tessa searched for something to distract the man and found a piece of metal piping outside one of the trash bins. It was short, so she had to get in closer than she wanted, but she had no other option. She swung it like baseball pro going for the cheap seats.
Whack.
Whack.
Whack.
Even while her kidneys screamed in protest, she aimed for the back of his knees first, then his beefy hands, then basically anywhere she could find an opening. Doing her own version of duck-and-run, hoping for a break, she avoided anything but a brush of his hands along her shoulder.
"Tessa, run to the car." Jake's breath was labored. Never a good sign.
She shook her head and came after Goliath with another swipe. He grasped the pipe and tossed it away before brushing her back. She pinwheeled backward and landed with a thud on her butt, jarring her entire body. Yowza. The kidneys she'd been nursing protested big time.
Jake threw himself into the mix once again. "Tessa, get to the car." He tossed her the keys. "It's down the block. They're after you, not me." He swung the pipe toward Goliath, strategically hitting the big guy's forearm.
Despite the industrial-size leather jacket the guy was wearing, he uttered something like a cross between a scream and a grunt. Jake smiled, like he was pleased at finally making some progress, but within seconds had to go on the defensive once again when the guy stalked after him, a scowl lining his face.
Jake backed away while reaching inside his jacket. Seconds later, he pulled out a gun. Without even an ounce of warning, he let loose two bullets, targeting the big guy's kneecaps. "For the record, I didn't want to do that."
He seemed to have an affinity for that area of the body for some odd reason. And maybe he was more strategic than she imagined, as the guy toppled over moments later. For a second or two she wondered why he hadn't done that earlier, but by the same token, unlike others of her ilk, he seemed to be like her in that she considered guns the last resort.
Jake grabbed her hand and started running. She had no doubt the other guys weren't far behind, especially after hearing the gunshots. They'd be all over them in minutes, maybe even seconds.
With the physical exertion, the dissipating adrenaline, and the lingering effects from the other day—including her kidneys, which were now screaming at her to slow down—her breath caught in her throat as she struggled to keep up. Stamina was not her friend today. "How far?" She wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to stay at this pace.
"I have a remote starter hooked up to my phone." He clicked on it. Not far away, she heard a car's engine roar to life. Such a little thing, but she couldn't remember being happier knowing they were close.
"You Alliance folks sure have fancy gadgets. But why park so far from your apartment?"
"To keep the bad guys from finding it. Apparently that didn't work this time. They knew where to position the big man to keep us from getting to it."
She touched the door, but he must have predicted that she didn't have the energy, and came around to open it for her. Her mind spun with possibilities. Not only did they figure out who Jake was, they even knew where he parked his car. Whoever was after her were not run-of-the-mill bad guys. Even though the idea of the CIA trailed around her brain, she couldn't make sense of it.
"Until I can think of something else, we'll have to wing this escape thing." He walked around to the driver's side. After throwing their bags into the back seat and grabbing the keys from her hand, he screeched away from the curb and onto the open road. Out of Manhattan. And no doubt out of New York.
CHAPTER TEN
Jake's jaw felt pulverized, but not broken. He sucked back the pain. It had been a long time since he'd gotten into a jam with a guy that size, and he remembered now why he always chose to run rather than fight. Sometimes he had no other choice.
Now where?
He didn't really have a Plan B. And he didn't exactly have a Plan A either. His original idea had been to hold Tessa in his apartment and see what shook out. But now that didn't seem possible, since these people were on them like rabid dogs. Who they were and why they were after her, and now him, he couldn't say for sure. The connection to Afghanistan made sense, but she wasn't forthcoming with information that would help him put the pieces together.
Jake couldn't guess what was going down, but at the same time he knew there had to be something in her past putting that target on her back. Could be Afghanistan. But then again, it could be something else entirely, like her being a triple agent and stringing him along on the Afghanistan thing. With Nick murdered, the same trouble would head their way sooner or later. Getting out of New York was a necessity more than an option.
They did very little talking as he drove. More than likely Tessa didn't have the excess energy to engage in conversation. Once inside the car, she pushed back the seat and closed her eyes. He couldn't tell if she was decompressing or still needed more sleep to get the lethargy from the drugs out of her system.
Based on her expression and the way she moved, her back and/or kidneys were bothering her. Instinct or training had her jumping in the fray with the BMF and thinking about the physical consequences later. Being a trained operative as well, it was easy for Jake to put himself in her mindset.
He stopped the car in Bridgeport, Connecticut because it seemed to be out of the way enough to offer some protection. The way his luck had been working, that might change at the drop of a hat. But she needed a place to lie down, and he needed to think through some options. The modest hotel he came across seemed perfect for a hideaway. Not scuzzy enough to attract the local two-hour-nap clientele, but not so upscale they had security cameras that could be tapped into.
"How are we going to play this?" Even though she asked the question in ambiguous terms, he knew what she meant. What are the sleeping arrangements?
"Sharing a room, but separate beds. Okay with you? You did ditch me once already. I'm not taking any chances you might do it again."
"I only had to figure out how to get your fingerprints to shut off the alarm. A fifth grader could have done that."
"Or a very stubborn CIA agent. Same thing to my way of thinking."
She huffed. "I suppose this means I don't have a choice about the room situation, even if I'd prefer a little bit of privacy?" She smiled, taking a bit of the cynicism out of her words.
"Nope." He exited the car and went inside the office. While he might have wanted to get a little bit farther outside of New York, in many ways staying this close made more sense. Using his own car was liability enough, although he had to assume they'd suspect he'd head for Washington or Virginia, so he was counting on Connecticut being a direction they wouldn't consider. A few minutes later, he got back into the car and parked outside their room. "Would it put you in your happy place and make staying in the same room as me more palatable if I told you I packed some of those pain patches in your backpack?"
"I'm not sure happy is the right word, but I might be slightly less cranky." She gave him a cheesy smile.
"That's all I'm asking for right now." He unlocked the door and looked inside before plunking their bags on the dresser. "I'm going to get us something to eat. Have a taste for something?"
"Anything sounds good about now." She gingerly walked to the bathroom, pressing her hands against her back.
"Let me k
now if we need to hook up with a doctor about those kidneys. There're some painkillers in your bag." He suspected she had a high tolerance for pain, as most people who did this kind of work did—which made him worry. Wimping out at a few bumps and bruises wouldn't help a person last long in this vocation.
She smiled and gave him a salute. "Will do, Captain." Then she closed the bathroom door.
His brief time with her still didn't give him any clue as to her character. She didn't appear to be overly secretive—except for the running-away thing. Most times she seemed pretty normal. There were giant pieces to the puzzle that had been left out of the equation he'd been given. He was no closer to figuring out if she was anything other than what she appeared to be at the beginning.
Somehow he needed to gather more information, and he called up Jennings on the way to the restaurant. "What did you find out about the guys who tried to kill her the other night?"
"They were long gone before our clean-up crew got there." Jake heard the shuffle of papers before Jennings spoke again. "We were able to pull some prints from both the warehouse and their car, since they weren't too careful after you jacked them up. They're hired guys. Not connected to the CIA as far as I can tell."
That eliminated one possibility. Maybe. "Do you think their connection is buried so deep you can't find it?"
"Always a possibility. But they were Russian. They spoke Russian and had accents when they spoke English. I guess they could be former KGB. And they were looking for something she had, or at least thought she had. I'll check on the KGB connection to see if I come up with anything."
"Got anything else?" Jake needed something to help him navigate his way through this mess. He couldn't say anything for sure right now, and the waters seemed to be getting muddier by the minute.
"I'm getting the sense from my contact there's some speculation she's a double agent. She only had a superficial wound, but the other two were killed in Afghanistan. Now that the only other survivor is dead, it amps up the finger pointing and questions, which is why they asked us to intervene." Jennings paused a moment. "What's your read on her?"
They suspected she was a double agent and were using him to test out that theory, while sheltering her with his protection in the meantime. Well, didn't that suck the big one?
"See if you can get them to tell me about her recent assignments, and I'll pump her for information on this end. I need to see if they match, or if she's holding out on me. I'll check in with you later."
This shed a whole other light on things. In some ways it made more sense than the obscure assignment he'd been given. Keep her safe. Which she seemed perfectly capable of doing herself, except for the trip-up in New York. For a second or two he thought about the possibility that it had been staged for his benefit. But her injuries were real. That would have been taking the whole masquerade a little too far.
Did Jake allow her good looks to get in the way of common sense? Just because she looked and acted innocent, it didn't mean she was. Ferreting out the truth was his specialty. Except for when it all blew up in his face.
Everything took on a sinister overtone when he returned to the room to find her hunched over her laptop. She glanced at him for a second before returning to whatever she'd been doing.
"Care to share what intel you have?"
She chewed on her bottom lip and shook her head. "If it doesn't make sense to me, it's not going to make sense to you."
"How will you know unless you run it by me?"
She was hedging, but now it seemed more ominous after his conversation with Jennings.
Most CIA operatives he knew were excellent at playing the game and sounding believable. Being able to survive a couple of years, let alone eight, she had to be able to bluff her way through almost anything. Was she playing him all along? He'd been sucked into that trap before.
She turned her computer toward him. "This is the video of Alex getting executed." Her eyes seemed a little misty for a few seconds.
"They took him but didn't take you. Why?" Even though he tried to keep the skepticism from his voice, he wasn't certain he was successful. The whole scenario sounded all the warning bells inside him. They killed two at the scene, but left her and Nick unscathed. He could see why someone might be suspicious. There were some holes in her story of exactly what happened that night in Afghanistan.
"I blacked out from blood loss while they carted off Alex." She shook her head, guilt evident in the downward cast of her eyes. "I have no idea why they didn't take me as well. I was shot in the shoulder, but they had to know it wasn't that bad. Nick was about a half-mile away, injured as well."
"How about Alex? Was he injured when they took him away?"
"I don't remember. Alex was the toughest guy I've ever known. He wouldn't have been taken without a fight." She did that lip-biting thing again. Yep, she was hiding something. It could be anything from survivor's guilt to complicity.
"What aren't you saying?" Maybe she'd tell him the truth. Maybe she wouldn't. And maybe he wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
She shrugged, but there was a kind of tenseness in her shoulders. "I can't remember the details."
Based on the intonation, she wanted him to stop probing. And maybe he should until after dinner. He'd picked up some beer and wine, and hoped a little bit of imbibing might free her thoughts and allow him to figure things out. At least for the time being.
"Send that video to my email so I can look at it as well."
* * *
Tessa rolled her shoulders and polished off the beer she'd consumed with dinner. How did she want to tell him? That overriding thought occupied her mind as she filtered through the memories.
"It was hotter than hell. As per an agreement with our operative, we met outside of Kabul."
Sweat dripped off her body in rivulets down her back. The traditional hijab and white tunic and pants she wore didn't help her comfort level. Being in a remote village outside of Kabul, away from anything resembling a fan, was Alex's brilliant plan. Even though in late September the temperature had to be 110 and not much cooler inside the tent.
"I was better at Farsi than the others, so I handled the questioning."
"Kujaa?" Where? Others in his band of merry men were well versed in English, but not this one, which made him all the more vulnerable. Enticing one of Behrang's men to meet with them outside the city was a major coup—getting him to talk was something else entirely.
Amir was twitching, for the most part keeping his fidgety hands in his lap, his eyes cast downward at her feet, like she would have expected given the cultural nuances. In some ways she liked the ballsy ones better—the ones that would brag about all the information they had to share for the right price. They were much easier to decipher.
She had to wonder what that said about her. Either she liked the idea of a challenge or was used to the failure rate. She shook her head and pushed the thought away. She needed to concentrate.
"Who came up with the lead?" Jake asked, interrupting her thoughts.
"Alex. He seemed to be able to tap into resources like no one else."
"But he was the only one they took. Don't you think that's odd?"
She bristled at his unspoken implication. "Not odd at all. More than likely they wanted to get information from him to see how many people he'd recruited."
"Amir, I can help you if you cooperate. We need to know more about the strike—when, where, and how. If we get that information, my bosses will be very happy. That means you and your family will have a very happy life."
Okay, maybe she was stretching the truth. She couldn't imagine anyone having a happy life in this godforsaken country with rampant poverty and multiple deaths an everyday occurrence, but she needed this guy to talk. The powers that be sent her in when they wanted the softer touch. She didn't even want to think about what might happen if it were Eli doing the interrogation. The poor guy was scared enough as it was.
He shook his head and shrugged. She ground her tee
th together. Alex swore the guy had approached him wanting to spill information. It appeared that right now he had no intention of sharing anything besides his bad breath.
"Would you like some bottled water?" If it were up to her, she'd douse herself in a vat of it. She'd always thought summers in DC were brutal, but wading through summer into fall in Afghanistan had it beat by a mile.
She forced herself to focus while sweat beaded under her hijab. If not for the fact she'd scare the crap out of him, she'd take off the hijab and pull off the tunic covering her tank top.
Amir's eyes flicked past hers but didn't connect. Then again, she didn't expect him to, based on culture. He glanced over his shoulder. First one then the other, as if expecting someone.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention while dust swirled around the perimeter of the tent. Having a hint of a breeze might stave off the stream of water coursing down various parts of her body.
She was sweating her ass off because Alex thought she could get Amir to relax and tell her some juicy tidbits, but the guy hadn't made so much as a sound. She had to wonder if he could even talk.
"Hey, don't get mad at me. I'm asking the question as an impartial observer. I wasn't there. And I didn't know this Alex guy."
She bit back the whip of anger as once again he pulled her out of her memories. Having Jake a part of her life for the time being was a necessary evil. Sooner or later the time would come where she could see whatever this was to its logical conclusion. Trusting somebody she'd known barely forty-eight hours was not something she planned to do. Partial truths would be the only way to play this.
"I was getting nowhere with Amir, despite using my feminine wiles."
He smiled. "You have some of those? Maybe you could use them on me some time."
"Not a chance." She returned the smile. As far as people messing with her life were concerned, Jake was all right. "As I was saying. Amir wasn't talking, and then I noticed he started to get a little twitchy. The camels outside started to make some noises."