by Kylie Brant
Her deer-in-the-headlights expression gave him pause. He half expected her to toss his veiled threats back in his face. To invite him to do his worst. And he wondered, still, when push came to shove, if he’d be able to follow through.
But she did neither. She just looked at him with those dark and haunted eyes. And her words were like a knife twisting deep inside him. “Explain again how I’m supposed to tell you and Samuelson apart. Your tactics are the same. You go after a person’s emotional jugular and hold a knife to it. And you…you’re threatening to shred everything I hold dear. To destroy my life to get what you want. I used to think you two were carbon copies. But now I think you’re worse than he is.”
With every word she uttered his throat tightened until it threatened to strangle him. If she’d wielded a machete on him, she couldn’t have wounded him more deeply.
He had to force himself to move. To round the corner of the bed where she still clung for support, and stride to the doorway. “The choice is yours. You cooperate with me and your secret is safe. But if you refuse…” He halted at the door, his hand on the doorknob, and looked over his shoulder back at her. “…then I’ll destroy you along with Samuelson.”
* * *
The rap at his door was unwelcome. Cael was on his balcony nursing a neat whiskey and battered scruples. He considered, for the space of a second, not answering it. Professionalism won out over surliness, and he shoved away from the railing, carrying his drink with him to the bedroom door.
He exchanged the glass for his weapon before he opened it. Found Reynolds standing on the other side.
The man didn’t bat an eye at the gun. “Saw your light. Figured if you were still up you must have…” Obviously spying the drink setting on the dresser, he amended, “…and you do have liquor. What is it? Whiskey? Got another glass?”
Swinging the door open, Cael allowed the man to enter. He went to the bathroom and returned with a water glass. Pouring two fingers into it, he said, “I’m out of ice.”
Reynolds reached for the glass. “Have you ever known me to be choosy?” Without another word he headed out onto the balcony Cael had deserted. Retrieving his drink, Cael followed him.
“Couldn’t sleep,” the man told him laconically, propping a hip against the balcony.
Cael nodded his understanding. Adrenaline did odd things to a person’s body. Sharpened nerve endings to such a keen edge that rest was impossible until the effect was worn off. And Reynolds was an adrenaline junkie. So he’d pursued the type of life he was best suited for, as Cael had himself.
The two men were silent for a while as they sipped their drinks and stared out in the darkness. They knew each other well enough for the quiet to be companionable. They’d had each other’s back more times than Cael wanted to remember. He couldn’t think of anyone he trusted as implicitly.
“Could have been worse tonight,” the other man mused. “Major screwup not stopping Fuente’s limo sooner, but the inner perimeter held and the interior security looked solid. What’d you decide on the outer perimeter?”
“They’ve been terminated.”
Reynolds nodded. There was no other choice. The men had proven that their judgment was flawed. That given a split-second decision, they made the wrong one. Whether a stupid mistake or a more calculated one, they needed to be weeded out before they made another error in judgment that could prove costlier.
“Carter was solid.”
A knot fisted in the pit of Cael’s belly. “Looked like it.”
“Good nerves. Sharp decision making.” Reynolds paused a moment to drink. “Took both tires out with one shot each, no night-vision goggles. Not too shabby.”
“I saw the tape,” Cael said shortly. His gut was starting to burn now. It suited him to blame the whiskey.
The other man grinned, a flash of white teeth in the near darkness. “Wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Hell, wouldn’t mind having that tape in my private collection. I got a thing for dangerous women. It’s a sickness. And then that wrestling match with Fuente.” He gave a suggestive whistle. “Worth the price of—”
“She’s working for Samuelson.”
The abrupt words successfully stemmed the rest of that sentence. Wiped the humor from Reynold’s face with a swiftness that would have been comical under any other circumstances.
“How long have you known?”
“Long enough.”
Cael felt Reynolds stare at him searchingly as he took another drink, welcoming the scorch of the whiskey down his throat.
“Do we have to watch for sabotage?”
We. The word had appreciation flickering. Cael looked at the man, closer to him than any brother could be. “No, she’s solid for this assignment. He fed her a bogus line about wanting information on the government here to get her to agree to come. I figure he’ll reveal his true purpose when she gets back to the States.”
“He’ll pump her for every fact observed about you and your handling of this mission, then twist that to suit his own purposes. Rat bastard.”
It was no coincidence that their minds ran along such similar paths. “If he wants to manufacture a crap storm, the political climate is well suited for a reputation assassination, don’t you think?” The performance of the private security contractors in Iraq had Congress looking at similar firms with a magnifying glass. And high-risk missions such as these were rife with opportunity for something to go wrong. It wouldn’t take much spin from a man in Samuelson’s position to lay the blame for any bloodshed squarely at Cael’s doorstep. A congressional inquiry could tie him up for months. Close his business down. Ruin Cael’s career.
“Well, if he just wants you destroyed instead of dead he’s modified his objective. Any chance that’s Carter’s true purpose here?”
“She’s a sniper, not an assassin.”
Reynolds took a long drink. “Person’s occupation can change given enough motivation. The way Samuelson works, he’d have provided her with some decent motivation.”
“You could say that.” Cael stared broodingly into the night, swirling the amber liquor around in his glass. “I imagine he’s discovered the same thing I did. She’s Calvin Julson’s daughter.”
The liquor in Reynolds’s glass sloshed precariously as he jerked toward Cael. “No shit? How deep was that buried?”
“I doubt it was something she put on her job application,” he said drily. Julson was, in his estimation, emotionally unbalanced. He’d seen TV clips of the man, lean and tough as shoe leather, spouting the sort of hateful vitriol that incited violence against whichever minority he was railing against at the time. He’d narrowly managed to avoid a conspiracy conviction two years ago for the murder of a homosexual couple living in Montana.
It still astounded him that the man’s blood ran through Ava’s veins. Little wonder she’d disavowed him.
“We can use this,” Reynolds said surely. He was deep in strategy mode now. “Samuelson doesn’t know it, but he’s handed us a weapon in Carter. You’re already figuring on using her, right?” He didn’t wait for an agreement. Their minds worked similarly most of the time. “Carter doesn’t want this out, she’ll have no choice but to agree. We manufacture a carefully edited story about circumstances down here that put you in a less than stellar light of course.”
“Of course.”
“Samuelson takes the bait, mounts a full-fledged inquiry, leading the charge, discovers too late that he’s been had and ends up with his reputation in shambles.” Reynolds cocked a brow at him. “Is that what you’re thinking?”
Useless to deny it. “Something along those lines.”
“But here’s the death blow for that prick.” Propping his forearms on the railing, Reynolds drained his glass. “We can still kill his entire career just by letting this spin out. Getting proof of him working with Carter. Then we leak who she really is, and any credibility he has is shot. This is a win-win for us.” He raised his empty glass with a grin. “Congratulations, buddy. We’ve finally
been handed a way to give that son of a bitch a figurative bullet between the eyes.”
“Destroying Carter in the process.”
His tone apparently wasn’t quite as even as he’d strived for. Reynolds’s look sharpened. “Well, yeah. But she’s collateral damage, right? You can’t afford to worry about her when an opportunity like this falls into your lap. You take it and do what you have to.”
“Right.”
“It’ll be a pleasure helping you plan just how to paint that pock-faced bastard into a corner and finish him off.” Reynolds clapped him on the shoulder before setting the empty glass down and cheerfully saying good-night.
Moodily, Cael finished off his drink as the door closed in back of the man. There was nothing Reynolds liked better than plotting strategy. He’d have two or three lines of action to suggest in a matter of hours. Given their affinity for this sort of thing, Cael would be very much surprised if whatever his friend came up with didn’t match pretty closely the tentative strategy he’d mapped out.
She’s collateral damage, right?
No matter how he tried, he couldn’t get Reynolds’s words out of his head. They shouldn’t burn and char a hole through his system. It would be a mistake to forget Ava had signed on for this. To spy, if nothing else, reporting details back to Samuelson that would be twisted to hang Cael.
Okay, maybe she had no way of knowing what the man was. What he’d use her for. But she was a cop. A sniper. She knew few missions went as planned. How easily they went awry and how quickly something black and white could be painted with shades of gray. She assumed that risk every day on the job.
Toying with the empty glass, he shifted his attention to Samuelson. There was little he wouldn’t do to bring the man down. He’d been a malevolent force in Cael’s life since they’d met. The agent had done his best to destroy him. Certainly he’d destroyed his mother. So there was little he wouldn’t do to return the favor. Even if it meant using Ava Carter.
But his conscience was like a noose, strangling him from the inside. He’d have to find a way to set it aside. He couldn’t afford to be soft now, when everything he’d worked for was being handed to him on a platter.
He couldn’t afford to let concern for Ava sway him from the most important act of his life.
* * *
Ava sat on the bed, propped on the pool of pillows staring into the shadows. Sleep was out of the question.
It seemed obvious that it had only been a matter of time until her past became known. Odd how that thought seemed so clear now, when she would have violently disagreed with it weeks earlier. Certainly she’d never taken particular efforts to conceal it. She’d been seventeen when she stopped trying to contact her father. Stopped begging him to allow her back into his life. She was too numb to experience the familiar twist of shame at the memory. And then she’d met Sammy, married him and moved to California. Kept his name after they divorce, and even that had had as much to do with her and Alex sharing the same last name as with hiding her relationship with Calvin Julson.
Shoulders slumped, she turned her thoughts to damage control. Because she was through being manipulated. First by Samuelson and now by Cael. The past could only be used to hurt her if she wanted it kept hidden. Remove the secret, remove the power of using it as a weapon.
But the thought of what she had to do made her stomach tangle in greasy knots. She’d lied to Alex all his life. Ironic that she’d been scrupulously honest about the boy who’d gotten her pregnant. She had every intention of going through with her promise to her son that she’d allow him to contact the man if he wanted to when he was eighteen.
But she’d told him since he could ask that he had no grandparents, other than Sammy’s father. No cousins. No living relatives on her side at all. She’d been protecting him by shielding him from the truth. It wasn’t easy confronting who and what her father was.
But she’d been protecting herself as well. Because she hated, hated considering what she’d been on her way to becoming before her father had kicked her out.
The hours ticked by as she wrestled with the rationalizations and the sick fear that her son would detest her for the lie. Despise her for the truth. But as dawn tinged the sky outside the window, she knew exactly what she had to do.
Reaching for the phone, she dialed Alex’s cell number.
CHAPTER 8
Ava exchanged a look with Sibbits and Benton as they walked into the conference room. If all of McCabe’s operatives were in one place, who was guarding de la Reyes and Gonzalez?
All of them took chairs at the table. And it occurred to her, surveying Cael’s grim expression, that the last forty-eight hours hadn’t been kind to him. She refused to spare him any sympathy. She hadn’t spoken to him alone since the scene in her room. When he’d had her in his arms one moment, threatened her the next. Nor was she looking forward to their next conversation. But for now, she focused on what he had to tell them. It was obvious from his expression that it was urgent.
“You know that Perez never returned from the police interrogation of the airline dispatcher.”
Ava and the other two operatives nodded at McCabe’s terse words. She knew Cael had gotten more and more concerned, especially after talking to the police captain. Perez had left headquarters after spending nearly twelve hours on the interrogation. The police claimed they hadn’t seen him since.
“How do we know we can trust the policia in this country?” offered Sibbits. His rubbed his hand over his graying crew cut. “Everyone else is suspect. Why not them?”
“The interrogation did convince them that the dispatcher was in Ramirez’s employ. And they may or may not be corrupt. Or others working for Ramirez could have been watching. We have to consider that Perez might have been followed and scooped up by them after leaving the police headquarters.”
The mood in the room turned grim. “The hospitals have been checked?” Ava asked.
Cael nodded. “He’s not in jail, he’s not in a hospital. He’s not in the morgue.”
She wondered if she imagined the bleak unspoken “yet” at the end of that statement.
“I sent Reynolds out to sniff around last night. See if he could shake some information loose from any of the informants he’s worked with. He hasn’t reported in.”
Uneasiness filled her. Protocol dictated reports at least every eight hours. Reynolds appeared to be a consummate professional. If anyone could find Perez, it’d be him, or Cael himself.
But his being out of communication for so long was extremely worrying.
“What this means to us is we’re down two men for the time being. I’ve got two guardsman on Gonzalez right now. God knows they can’t get him out of his quarters without blowing themselves to hell and back. And de la Reyes is in the next room having breakfast with Fuente. It’s going to take the four of us to rotate between shifts. But being shorthanded is dangerous, too. I want each of you to give me names of guardsmen that have impressed you. Ones you trust more than the others. We’re going to have to start giving a few of them more responsibility, at least where they can be supervised.”
“Where are we on their bank account audits?”
Cael reached for a mug of coffee sitting in front him, took a drink. “No other unexplained sums of money showed up in any guardsmen’s accounts. Of course they wouldn’t have had to deposit a bribe, either. But there was a large deposit made to the airport dispatcher. Hopefully this means we can afford to trust the presidential guard more in the coming days.”
“What have you learned about the remotes?”
There was a lethal edge to Cael’s tone. “I’ll be talking to Gonzalez again in a few minutes. Reynolds and I spent the last thirty-six hours interviewing the National Guardsmen. More questions about him have arisen.” He glanced at his watch. “That’s it. Sibbits and Benton, get some sleep. Carter, you’re on de la Reyes. I’ll take Gonzalez. We’ll have another briefing this evening.”
Ava slid her chair back and rose, turning
toward the door. Cael’s voice stopped her. “Carter, I’d like to speak to you for a minute.”
She was tempted, sorely tempted, to continue out the door. She’d managed to evade being alone with him for two days. It hadn’t been easy to tamp down the trepidation and antagonism their last scene together had fostered. Even now, her chest was going tight and nerves were clutching in her belly.
The reaction annoyed her. Cael McCabe wasn’t going to be given this kind of power over her. Not anymore. Not on any level.
She forced herself to meet his gaze, hoping none of the welter of emotion showed in her expression. When the door clicked quietly behind her, leaving the room empty except for the two of them, she could feel the walls shrinking in, crowding her.
Cael was silent for a moment. But his gaze, fixed on hers, was searching. She wasn’t going to remember what had happened the last time they were alone together. That path led to betrayal. Instead she’d recall what he’d said after he’d released her.
A man ready to take her to bed one minute and issuing threats the next exuded a kind of danger that owed nothing to the physical. And a woman who was still attracted in the face of his ruthlessness was nothing short of stupid. He wouldn’t be allowed to slip under her guard again.
But that vow felt hollow alongside the sliver of concern that pierced her as the silence strung out between them. He looked like the last two days had been long on worry and short on sleep. Certainly the disappearance of Perez would be weighing on him.
Unwilling to break the taut silence, she waited for him to speak. When he did, his words helped stiffen her will even as they flayed her feelings.
“I’m hoping that the last couple days have given you an opportunity to reevaluate your position.”
Deliberately misunderstanding, she said, “You mean professionally? Because I have to admit, dealing with Marissa Fuentes’s theatrics every day does test my patience. If she orders me to fetch something for her one more time I may have to place her in a choke hold.”