Jamie pulled his pants over his hips and did them up before grabbing a bottle of water from the small wet bar in the corner. He handed it to Kyle, who stared at it for a couple of seconds before taking it. He drank it down beneath Jamie’s watchful eyes, slowly coming back to himself. Jamie took the empty bottle and threw it in the trash before stepping close. The heat from his half-clothed body warmed Kyle’s naked one, and he hummed wordlessly. Kyle leaned his head backward, silently asking for a kiss, which Jamie lovingly obliged, kissing him slow and deep.
“I’ll fuck my cum out of you later, but right now I still have to work,” Jamie said when they broke apart.
Kyle didn’t fight the pressure of Jamie’s hand on his shoulder, sinking once more to his knees. Jamie pulled the chair closer to the desk and sat down, spreading his legs. Kyle hooked his hands around Jamie’s ankles and rested his head against Jamie’s thigh, breathing in the smell of sex and Jamie.
“I love you,” Kyle mumbled.
Warm fingers carded through his hair, and Kyle closed his eyes, sinking into the comfort that Jamie offered.
“I know,” Jamie said softly. “I love you, too.”
9
Beat the Drums Slowly
“Should go with.”
Sean looked up from his tablet as Alexei walked up the ramp into the belly of the X-17 Hermes combat jet. Ground crew personnel and Annabelle were going over last-minute flight checks and Sean wasn’t keen on getting in their way. Transitioning from intelligence work into an area of the MDF run predominantly by those in or from the military still took some getting used to.
“This transfer doesn’t require the entire team,” Sean said.
Alexei came around the transport cage the ground crew had set up inside the combat jet. The corners were made of plas-steel and the sides were filled in with bullet-resistant plas-glass. A portable environmental setup was connected up top, providing air to the prisoner or gas to knock them out if they were unruly.
Alexei shook his head. “Don’t trust Jansen.”
“None of us do, but we all trust Katie to keep him in line, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Sean would be traveling with Katie, Annabelle, and a couple of MDF agents in charge of Nikolaas Jansen’s transfer into federal custody, where USP Florence had a Faraday cage-enhanced cell ready for his arrival. Even though it wasn’t a combat mission, the three of them were still in combat uniforms, though no one wore their head gear yet. They’d don those items—hard helmet, tactical goggles, and face masks—before they started their descent to help ensure their identities remained secret.
Katie had done a deep telepathic scan on Jansen’s mind yesterday on orders from the MDF, backed by a presidential memo. The possibility of a terrorist attack outweighed the right to privacy, even for a noncitizen. As an empath, even contained within a Faraday cage, Jansen’s mind was more than capable of shielding against Katie’s telepathy. Those shields were instinctive, and would always remain in his mind. Containment wouldn’t change that.
It took hours for Katie to break through, but she managed to pry open Jansen’s mental shields and read his mind. He couldn’t hide his thoughts and memories from her power, though what Katie found—or didn’t find—left them no closer to finding any answers.
Jansen had no knowledge of any future attack, either planned by Declan, the Pavluhkins, or the Presnenskaya Bratva. Oh, there was a lot of other information buried in Jansen’s mind the MDF was keen to get its hands on—Sean’s old coworkers in the intelligence division were having a field day with Katie’s memory transfers—but none of it helped to predict the immediate future.
If the situation weren’t so dire, Sean might have some misgivings about the avenues the MDF had taken when it came to stripping Jansen’s mind of information. If the person doing the mental digging hadn’t been Katie, he’d question their methods, but he knew Katie wouldn’t go out of her way to torture the enemy no matter how much Sean believed Jansen might deserve it.
“Could call Jamie. Have him let me come with,” Alexei said.
“Jamie has dinner with the president tonight, remember? Don’t interrupt him,” Sean warned.
“Not like when team is separated.”
“I know he doesn’t, but this isn’t even really a mission.” Alexei scowled, and Sean couldn’t help fondly shaking his head at the taller man. “It’ll be fine, Alexei.”
Sean never used the diminutive of Alexei’s name when they were on duty, both of them having drawn clear boundaries within their relationship when it came to their job. Sean knew they’d lucked out getting to work together on the same team, and they both had Jamie to thank for that.
Deep cover had become impossible for Sean after the Pavluhkin mission. Despite that career setback, the MDF had no plans to restrict him to a desk job due to his status as a metahuman. When the director would have assigned him to an active field team that wasn’t Alpha Team, Jamie had put his foot down.
Sean still didn’t know what Jamie had threatened the director with—because simply putting in a request for a new team member wasn’t enough to get clearance on something like this—but it had been enough to slot Sean under Jamie’s command. Sean and Alexei had worked hard to prove to their superiors that just because they were on the same team didn’t mean they would put each other’s lives above everyone else’s.
So far, they must have been doing something right, because neither of them had been reprimanded for decisions made in the field.
Sean caught sight of Katie coming up the ramp, talking rapidly with one of the director’s aides before she signed off on whatever it was he needed from her. The man saluted and jogged off toward the main building.
“They’re bringing out Jansen,” Katie announced. “And no, Alexei. You’re not coming.”
Alexei’s expression became sulky. Sean snorted quietly before nudging Alexei’s arm, drawing his attention. “It’s fine. We’ll be back in a couple of hours. Why don’t you find Kyle and go to the range? Shooting something might make you happy.”
“Pretend it Jansen’s face,” Alexei grumbled.
“If you must. I won’t argue what target you use.”
Alexei grinned at him before a commotion out on the tarmac caught both their attentions. Sean stepped a little to the side to better watch Jansen being escorted out of the main building under guard.
Jansen walked between two heavily armed guards, with a third taking up their six. He wore a white prison jumpsuit that was a far cry from the designer suits Sean remembered him wearing whenever they crossed paths. But more startling than his outfit were the physical changes wrought by the MDF.
Jansen’s curly blond hair had been shaved off prior to going under anesthesia so Gracie could implant an internal Faraday cage above his skull but beneath his scalp, effectively leashing his empathy. The biotech filaments left a strange pattern pressed into his skin, the incision sites healed over as if they never existed thanks to Gracie’s power. Since Jansen was no longer at risk of removing the Faraday cage, his hands had been cuffed in front of his body, the thick mag-cuffs linked to a metal belt. The give of the chains between wasn’t much, and neither were the set connecting his ankles.
He shuffled into the transport cell and the door closed behind him, the lock engaging with a loud beep. Jansen raised his head and looked right at them, hazel eyes moving from one to the next until they landed on Katie. Sean doubted he was the only one who saw the way Jansen flinched with his entire body as he registered her presence.
Katie barely acknowledged Jansen beyond saying over comms, “Prisoner is secured. We’re wheels-up in five.”
Alexei glared at Jansen for a few seconds longer before turning to face Sean. “Be here when you return.”
“You don’t have to wait around,” Sean told him.
“Is what team do.”
Alexei waved goodbye before walking toward the ramp. He pounded his fist against the transport cage on his way out of the combat jet, makin
g Jansen jump. Sean shook his head and returned to what he had been doing before he was interrupted.
Flight prep didn’t take that much longer, and soon Annabelle was launching them vertically into the sky. The MDF agents tasked with handling Jansen’s transfer into the prison took up a pair of seats near the transport cage. Katie had brought along her laptop to work on for the short flight to Colorado. Sean opted to do the same, but after nearly forty-five minutes in the air, he got up to check their location through the navigation system.
“You aren’t going to win.”
Jansen’s voice reached Sean’s ear over the hum of the combat jet engines. He didn’t look away from the computer terminal near the flight deck, more interested in pinpointing where they were on the map. He expanded the area outward, eyeing their trajectory. According to the map, they were flying over Kansas, ETA twenty minutes.
“Did you hear me?” Jansen asked, raising his voice. “You aren’t going to win, but I can help you.”
“What was your bet?” Katie asked, not looking up from her work. “An hour before he asked for a plea bargain?”
“I didn’t bet. I like my money,” Sean said.
He stepped away from the terminal. Rather than take a seat next to Katie, Sean walked to where Jansen was temporarily imprisoned. Hazel eyes stared at Sean from inside the cage, the bravado in them easy to make out, as was his fear. Jansen was used to money, status, and friends in high places. He had none of that here, no leverage to bargain with, and they all knew it. All Jansen had to look forward to was time in prison while the legal cases in the United States and Europe stacked up against him.
“Ovechkina got everything we could ever need from your mind yesterday. You can’t help us, and even if you could, the United States government doesn’t bargain with terrorists,” Sean said.
Jansen pressed his hands against the plas-glass, taking a step closer. Sean watched him without worry. In the unlikely event Jansen somehow escaped his confinement, everyone on the combat jet was armed, and Katie’s telepathy was a formidable hurdle very, very few could hope to overcome.
Jansen’s mouth curled at the corners. He tried for his old smirk, but it came out more of a snarl. “And you say I’m the enemy after she forced herself into my mind.”
“Considering you’ve emotionally manipulated hundreds of people to better your lot in life and make yourself rich, I’m not inclined to feel sorry for you,” Sean replied coolly.
“A bit two-faced, don’t you think? You Americans, always thinking you’re in the right. How does my detainment measure up to your bloody laws and ethics, hm? No counsel, no trial, nothing amounting to fairness.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll get a trial. Whether here or somewhere in Europe, a judge will send you away for the rest of your life, however short or long that might be.”
Deep down, Sean hoped he was tried in a US court. The United States was one of the few last holdouts in the world when it came to capital punishment. If anyone deserved to die, Jansen was high on that list in his opinion.
Jansen leaned his forehead against the plas-glass. The internal nanotech wires buried beneath his skin in that area seemed to roll a little from the pressure. “You’ll never see what’s coming.”
That sounded like a threat, and it caught Sean’s attention like nothing else Jansen had been yelling about since they captured him.
“You think so?” Sean asked mildly.
Jansen’s gaze flicked over his shoulder at where Sean knew Katie was sitting. “You’re too late and you don’t even know it.”
Katie came to stand beside Sean, eyeing Jansen with placid disinterest. “I saw nothing in your mind yesterday about Stanislav’s plans. You have nothing to bargain with, Jansen.”
“Oh, love. Do you think he didn’t see this happening?” Jansen laughed, the sound tired and raw to Sean’s ears. The desperation in those hazel eyes had faded, replaced with an anger that made him look feverish. “Stanislav is ten moves ahead of you. Always. If I don’t know anything, it’s because he knew I couldn’t to preserve his plans. I was kept out of the information loop to keep all of you in the dark. Your eyes are still covered. You can’t see what’s coming, and you never will.”
“Then if you don’t have information, how do you think you can bargain for anything?”
“I have my ways, as I’m sure you saw. I’m a facilitator. I make things happen.”
“You can’t make your freedom happen, that’s for damn sure.”
Jansen straightened up, eyeing them both. “As I said, Ekaterina. You can’t win.”
Katie didn’t deign to respond, merely spun on her heel and headed for the flight deck instead of her seat. Sean followed after her, feeling Jansen’s eyes boring into his back. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder at the empath.
“Brown, do a scan,” Katie ordered.
Annabelle was the only one in the flight deck, strapped into the pilot’s seat, a firm grip on the yoke. The aviator sunglasses she wore reflected the sunlight in a bright glare when she turned her head to look at them.
“Range?” Annabelle asked, not arguing.
“Start with two hundred kilometers in all directions.”
“Roger that.”
Anabelle accessed the combat jet’s onboard computer. Holographic displays popped up around her seat, the transparent windows moving with her head so they didn’t fully obscure her vision.
“Think something is wrong?” Sean asked.
Katie glanced at him, her blue-eyed gaze steady. “Jansen had nothing in his mind about any attack. If Stanislav kept him out of the loop as he says, then we have a problem.”
“Better call base.”
Katie was already sliding into the co-pilot’s seat, quick fingers gaining access to the communications system. Sean gripped the headrest on Annabelle’s seat and leaned forward as much as he could to get a look at the in-progress scan. Not all of it made any sense, but he knew the red-line warning that suddenly popped up seconds later wasn’t good.
“Motherfucker!” Annabelle snarled.
She wrenched the yoke to the left and Sean pitched off his feet, crashing against the opposite bulkhead. He grabbed for any bit of support he could find, feeling his stomach churn as Annabelle pulled a barrel roll that made it impossible to tell up from down. Sean had to fight against his instinct to phase, knowing that if he did, he’d be left far behind his teammates in wide-open sky. Then the combat jet’s artificial gravity kicked in and his feet connected with the decking as Annabelle pulled out of the roll, only to bank hard to the right. Sean fought to remain upright.
“I need you on guns, Viper!” Annabelle shouted.
“Where the fuck are they?” Katie said.
“Usin’ stealth. Computer barely caught their approach in time. Came from above. Reckon a dive from atmo.”
Katie swore loudly. “How the fuck does Declan have a combat jet?”
Annabelle ignored her, too busy piloting them out of targeting range to acknowledge Katie’s rage.
“Wraith, buckle up,” Annabelle ordered.
Sean grabbed for her seat’s headrest again before wrapping his fingers around the connecting point of her seat harness, holding on tight. “No way.”
“Sit your goddamn ass down!”
“If they hit us, I need to be close to you guys in order to phase you.”
“We have shields.”
“You really think that will stop them? They’re using stealth within our borders. That’s an act of war any way you look at it. What other illegal armament you think they might be carrying?”
“Fuckin’ hell. Can you control their minds, Viper?” Annabelle wanted to know.
“Not and fly those jets safely. I don’t know if we have towns or empty plains below us,” was Katie’s response. “Base, this is Viper, how copy?”
Sean tuned out Katie’s conversation with headquarters, more focused on Annabelle’s flying and the trio of stealth combat jets attempting to shoot them out of t
he sky. The onboard computer was having a difficult time tracking the fighter jets and they couldn’t fully see the enemy themselves.
Stealth technology had grown in leaps and bounds over the past few centuries. These days, properly built and applied stealth skin could make a jet seemingly disappear in broad daylight. Radar couldn’t track stealth jets, pilots could barely see them up close, and dog fights could be a death sentence.
Having Annabelle piloting increased their odds of survival, but even she couldn’t pilot a dead combat jet.
The HUD suddenly went dead, all equipment across the flight board blacking out at the exact same time the engines stopped functioning. For a few seconds, the combat jet continued on its straight vector before the nose dipped toward the earth below, gravity pulling it down. Sean could feel the drop in his stomach, sudden and sharp, before it disappeared and he lurched against the seat, suddenly feeling lighter.
“EMP!” Annabelle yelled, smacking her hand on the harness release button. “I can’t keep us aloft for long!”
A high-powered electromagnetic pulse bomb had rendered their transportation dead in the air. Sean reached for Annabelle and Katie’s hands, holding on and refusing to let go as they each scrambled out of their seats. Sean hauled them out of the flight deck, looking over at the two MDF agents who had remained strapped in for the flight. Jansen was sprawled on the decking inside his transport cage, face a mask of white terror.
“Get over here!” Sean yelled.
The two agents undid their harnesses and rushed forward. They were halfway to him when the missile hit.
It slammed straight through the dead-in-the-air combat jet, the concussive force of the missile’s impact ripping the combat jet apart. Sean felt that wave as a pressure against his body for a split second before he phased the three of them out of the fireball.
Annabelle must have retracted her anti-grav power, because debris started to fall toward earth. Through the smoke, fire, and jagged metal, Sean got a glimpse of the damaged transport cage Jansen had been in, but saw no sign of the man himself—most likely because the enemy missile had killed him.
In the Requiem (Metahuman Files Book 5) Page 14