“The CIA pulled her for reasons they don’t feel are important enough to share,” Fish continued. “They put her in the custody of the Marshals though I have no idea why because the woman should have been able to disappear on her own before making her way back to the CIA.”
“That’s not strange at all,” Lita commented sarcastically. “Don’t tell me Juanita sent her minions after the agent.”
“She may have and because we know how the cartels operate, my acquaintance at the Marshals is calling in the favor I owe him.”
“That’s where the paranoia comes in,” Lita stated with surety.
“My acquaintance thinks he has a mole or the CIA has one because there have already been a few times the Marshal’s locations have been compromised by either Juanita’s cartel or one of her enemies. Which cartel hasn’t been confirmed one way or the other. They barely escaped the last attempt to retrieve the agent which ended in a Marshal’s death.”
Lita frowned. It was never pleasant to hear about a fellow law enforcement agent falling in the line of duty. “So, why isn’t the information on the agent’s location limited to the Marshal’s director?” Lita couldn’t resist asking the obvious. The look Fish leveled on him was enough of an answer. The information had been limited, but it was still somehow leaking. “Okay. I guess using us is supposed to bypass whatever leak they think is coming from their agency or the CIA?”
“That is what my acquaintance is hoping for, as well as, having our experience in anticipating what actions the cartel may employ to reacquire the agent.”
Lita thought for a moment. “What’s the end game here?”
“The Marshals are moving the agent from where she turned up to the CIA headquarters in California. They can’t use traditional methods to move her since even moving her from Southern California to L.A. has been a nightmare. The cartel has made three attempts to capture Sarah Burke since she crossed back into the U.S.”
“That’s why your friend thinks there is a mole.”
“Acquaintance,” Fish corrected, his frown still furrowing his brow. “But, yes.”
“So, you’re sending me to be tactical support? To anticipate any movement the cartel may make to grab this agent?”
“Yes,” Fish confirmed. “You will report only to me or Hunt if you need Inteal. The Marshal who has custody of Burke has been ordered to follow your lead.”
“That will go over well, I am sure,” Lita didn’t hesitate to comment on the dick wagging that was sure to happen when the U.S. Marshal in charge of the CIA agent’s safety had to defer to him.
“Whether it goes over or not doesn’t matter. We both know the cartels have more resources and reach deep enough that whether there is a mole in the CIA or Marshals or not, it threatens Agent Burke’s safety.”
Lita nodded his agreement. It was scary how effective the cartel conducted any of their businesses and their reach to ensure those business ventures went their way was just as terrifying.
“Your ticket to California is in your inbox. You leave this evening. The address where Marshal Randy Connor is currently protecting Burke is also there. If it changes before you land, I’ll let you know,” Fish informed by way of dismissal.
Lita stood and ignored the way the back of his wet suit legs stuck to his legs. He had just pulled Fish’s door open and was about to step out when a thought crossed his mind. “Do we know if Agent Burke was turned?”
Fish met his gaze with a steady glare. “No.”
Lita only gave his boss a nod before he turned and exited Fish’s office. It wouldn’t be the first time an agent from any of the alphabets had been turned while on assignment. It wouldn’t even be the first time INET encountered such a situation if that was the case now. But going forward with the thought of that possibility was the prudent thing to do until proven otherwise.
Lita didn’t bother to close Fish’s office door behind him before he walked over to his workstation. He didn’t bother to sit down, either, but did notice the wet kitten was now absent from his screen when he pulled his suit jacket from where he draped it to dry on the back of his chair.
“So lucky.” Payne grinned at him.
Lita understood his teammate’s envy since they all hated being stuck in their cubicle hell. Still, he didn’t feel lucky when it came to being tagged for this assignment. Juanita Sanchez wasn’t a woman to fuck with even if INET had put several dents into her operations in the past. She would be on their top ten, the top three actually, if INET employed a top ten most wanted list like the FBI.
“We will see,” Lita replied neutrally as he walked toward the office doors. “Better than being stuck here with you assholes either way, though.”
Lita shot his teammates a grin over his shoulder before he stepped into the hall. Less than five minutes later, he was walking out of INET’s HQ. Twenty minutes after leaving the office he was home, stripped out of his annoyingly damp suit, and enjoying a hot shower.
He still had a few hours before he needed to board his flight to California at Orlando’s international Airport. Packing didn’t take him much time. He only stuffed his essentials into his large duffel bag. T-shirts and jeans along with several pairs of boxers and socks were all he really needed. And of course, his leather jacket. He wasn’t wearing or packing a damn suit. If Marshal Connor had an issue with his casual attire than that would be the man’s problem, not his.
Hopefully, Connor wouldn’t be one of the rare breed of his kind who religiously felt they needed to wear a suit to get their job done. The thought that the Marshal he was being sent to work with was just that type made Lita groan around his spoonful of cereal.
He should have asked Fish for more information about his soon-to-be partner. Whether Fish would have provided him with more than just the man’s name was neither here nor there. Lita shook his head slightly and took another bite of his sugar-laced breakfast dinner before he picked up his phone.
Randy Connor, US Marshal. Need deets. Lita typed and hit send. If anyone could tell him anything and everything he wanted to know about the Marshal, it was Hunt.
On it. Lita’s phone dinged with Hunt’s reply. Give me fifteen. Lita’s phone dinged barely a second later.
Lita briefly acknowledged Hunt’s reply before devouring the rest of his favorite breakfast cereal.
##~~##
Chapter Two
The dossier on US Marshal Randy Connor arrived in Lita’s email inbox well before he used one of his many INET provided fake government IDs to step through airport security. Lita hated to fly. His hatred had nothing to do with fear of flying. No, it had everything to do with suffering through the mediocrity he had to experience going through security. He respected the intentions to keep travelers safe, but he still hated it even if his fake US Marshal ID gave him express processing and waved away any issues with his concealed weapons.
However, his Marshal ID didn’t allow him to bypass the x-ray machine even after he handed over his 0.9 mil and backup piece. He was well aware of what they would see when he passed through the machine, so he was fully prepared for the looks the TSA agents shot in his direction. He’d seen the same type of expressions every time he was x-rayed be it in an airport or hospital.
Having several bars of metal attached to a cock, hard or soft, always garnered some sort of reaction. Lita was confident his Jacobs ladder wasn’t the first the TSA agents had ever seen, but their eyebrows still raised as their glances shifted from his face to his groin and back again. The agents said nothing and Lita ignored their looks (interested from one man and one woman, disgusted from a matronly agent, and curious from a guy who looked too young to do a damn thing if a terrorist actually walked through the machine) while he retrieved his weapons and duffel bag from the end of the conveyor belt.
An hour later, he boarded his plane to Oakland. He spent the entire flight reviewing the information Hunt had gathered on US Marshal Randy Connor. Not surprisingly, Connor was former military like most federal agents their age.
/> However, more often than not, previous military service brought its own complications. Lita knew because he was recruited straight from the Rangers after his medical discharge
There were a few ‘lifers’ that were recruited directly out of college. Slade being one of those, so Lita knew not having a military background didn’t mean shit when it came to an agent being worth their salt. In fact, prior military service only had a slight benefit when it came to the physical and tactical aspects of the job and even those could be trained.
Connor was military though, so that would either allow them to mesh well or repel worse than oil and water. Seeing as the man had been in the Marine Corps, Lita was more than sure it would be the latter instead of the former. He swept aside his thoughts over the possible head-butting they were likely to fall into as he stared at the man’s government ID and listed description.
Connor was five inches shorter than him, but Lita was used to being the goliath in the room. But, Connor’s 6’2 and 232 pounds still made the thirty-year old formidable even if he did look to be in his early twenties.
Dark brown was listed for his hair color, but seeing the man’s photo would have had Lita labeling it black. The Marshal’s hair was trimmed short and he was clean-shaven. The listed eye color, light brown, was also contradictory to what Lita saw while staring at the Marshal’s picture. Connor’s eyes appeared too light to be any shade of brown. They appeared almost gray when Lita stared at the photo on his phone. He’d bet the man’s true eye color was Hazel.
However, after reading the man’s hair and eye color and comparing the information to the picture, there was enough contradiction to question both. Pictures and physical descriptions could be forged. Lita knew because INET did it all the time when they were sent undercover. He had faith in Hunt’s Intel though, so he decided to assume the mug shot-like picture of Marshal Connor was the one he should go with instead of relying on the written description in the man’s file.
He then read through the rest of Connor’s Marshal file, as well as his military record. The man appeared more than qualified and proficient to do his job with the Marshal’s. At least on paper, but then again Lita rarely expected anything less since the agent came from the military.
Lita opened the file Hunt sent him on the CIA Agent, Sarah Burke, after he assured himself of his soon to be partner’s competency. The first thing that jumped out at him was the woman was young. Twenty-four was very young to have been inserted so deeply with Juanita Sanchez. It was no wonder Fish referred to her as more of an informant than an actual CIA agent.
What the hell was the CIA doing sending someone so young into the clutches of Juanita?
Lita gave his head a shake and pushed his thought away. He scanned the information Hunt was able to acquire on the woman. Lita was grateful to have every bit of it, too, especially since he was more than aware how scant finding any information on a CIA agent could be. Scant or not, Lita knew his teammate. Hunt sent him everything there was to find on Agent Sarah Burke.
Long blonde hair and blue eyes stared back at him from the same mug shot style photo as Marshal Connor’s. 5’3 and 105 pounds gave Lita a sense of how petite the CIA agent actually was without even seeing a full body picture. The woman was tiny and her small size only reinforced Lita’s assumptions: the problems Marshal Connor was having with his charge were all external from the Sanchez cartel and not internal from the agent attempting to escape WITSEC.
Of course, if she turned, the thought whispered in Lita’s mind.
Still, he was well aware stature didn’t have a damn thing to do with how dangerous or deadly an agent could be. Zep was just such an example and Lita had known his teammate for long enough that he enjoyed watching people underestimate the man. But stature had nothing to do with their mental state, either.
Fish mentioning his acquaintance’s paranoia over a mole along with not having a good read on the agent due to lack of Intel on her only reinforced Lita’s resolve to be hypervigilant. He would have been regardless since the Sanchez cartel was involved, but he would be even more so with the CIA agent until he was sure she wasn’t part of the problem the Marshal s were having.
He gave one last glance down at the blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty on his phone before he sent his device to sleep. He rested his head back, tried not to feel like a sardine squished in his seat, and closed his eyes. He would be in Oakland soon enough to assess the situation.
##~~##
US Marshal Randy Connor was currently hating life. He stared at his charge who lay flat on the couch with her eyes closed as if she were just napping away a summer afternoon. The young woman, CIA agent or not, was quickly becoming the bane of his existence.
Sarah Burke appeared young and innocent for all intents and purposes. She was anything but as he’d learned over the last month and a half. The petite twenty-four-year-old was just as cunning as any spy twice her age. Twice the woman had attempted to escape the protective custody he was charged with providing.
They had changed locations three times since he took custody of Agent Burke and became responsible for her safety. Safety he was barely sure he was providing after they’d been attacked twice. He had no idea how escorting the innocent looking woman to D.C. had become so difficult.
Randy had escorted plenty of people placed in WITSEC to their final destinations without any problems. Of course, she wasn’t just any WITSEC person and he had a feeling the recent attack they’d experienced wasn’t likely due to her just being a CIA agent. After the attack, he was more than sure they would encounter another attempt to grab Agent Burke.
Regardless if Juanita Sanchez didn’t just let her lovers walk away, Randy knew the Sanchez cartel had enough competition that someone else might be trying to get to Burke. He would put money on Juanita being behind the attacks, though. So, the fact that the mistress, who was way more than just a piece of ass to Juanita Sanchez, had the cartel set on retrieving her, was more than a problem for Randy.
It was more than just a problem for the US Marshals, as well. Preventing the Sanchez cartel from getting to Burke was the greater issue. Greater than he and his agency were equipped to handle. Randy wasn’t stupid enough to try and lie to himself about how far over his head this whole protection detail now was.
The moment he’d been assigned to Sarah Burke’s protection and learned she was CIA, he knew he was in deep shit. Much deeper shit than he’d ever wanted to find himself entrenched in. However, there wasn’t a damn thing to be done about it aside from doing his job which was to protect her until he successfully got her to D.C. Once there, he could transfer her custody to someone else and she’d be their responsibility to protect until the case against the cartel closed.
Normally, his job entailed babysitting witnesses in a safe house for a few days or up to a few months and unless their location was compromised, they stayed put. Stayed put and dealt with nothing more exciting than boredom. Still, having to move a witness wasn’t anything new for Randy, but having to change locations so many times in such a short period of time had him somewhat rattled.
Overcome and adapt. The Marine Corps motto that was Randy’s only prayer where religion was concerned echoed in his mind once more as he watched the sleeping woman.
He forced himself to sit upright from where he leaned on his forearms against his thighs. He was tired. Past tired and craving more than a few moments of sleep, but he had no other choice but to stay awake and watch his charge. Randy was well aware he was going on over twenty-four hours without sleep, but he had to stay awake for as long as he could until he was sent another partner.
Just thinking of needing another partner at all made his gut clench. He had only known Marshal Greene for a little over forty-eight hours before the young man was killed in the last attack. Randy hadn’t been able to do more than haul ass with Burke after Greene took three to the chest and stomach. Randy was able to get his charge away, so the only saving grace in his mind was that Greene hadn’t died in vain.
CIA Agent Sarah Burke was less than thrilled to be in WITSEC. Since day one the young agent swore she was safer on her own. She had tried to blow off the protective custody and even tried to slip away a few times. Randy was more than sure she was just waiting for another opportunity to escape.
Initially, she was coy in her attempts. “I just want some air.” “I just want to see the stars; these ceilings are driving me crazy.”
It was the stars incident when she tried to ditch his protection. She tried a second time to sneak out of the safe house when he and Greene changed shifts. After that attempt to be alone, Randy became hypervigilant when she requested any time outside. It was the last time he took her outside that the shit hit the fan.
Men from either Juanita’s cartel or one of the Sanchez’s enemies had opened fire on them. He and Greene returned fire and Randy almost didn’t catch Burke trying to slip away. He did, though, and Greene was the only reason Randy managed to escape and get her to another safe house.
She repeatedly asked to go outside even after the firefight where Greene gave his life for her protection. Randy nixed every request. He wasn’t stupid and knew full well her only reason to want to be outside, regardless of the threat of death, was so she could try and escape protective custody.
However, the attack on their last location had him questioning if someone other than his boss knew their location. When he was assigned to Burke, his directive was to keep her hidden until they were summoned to the CIA in D.C. Easy enough, right? Not.
Randy didn’t know the specifics of Burke’s case aside from her being deep undercover in the Sanchez cartel and being Juanita’s lover. That was more than enough to tell him Burke was into some very deep shit. The attack on their last safe house more than confirmed that was the case. He’d never protected someone of Burke’s caliber before, so he’d been ignorant of the extent of danger keeping the woman safe would entail. He wasn’t ignorant any longer.
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