Target: A Military Romance (Unwanted Soldiers Book 1)

by Aden Lowe

  "How?"

  "How what?" The question left me genuinely puzzled.

  She gave a quick shake of her head. "How will you re-con? It's not like you can just waltz right in and take a tour." They might be sisters, but I couldn't pick out any resemblance between Mrs. Niels and the girl in the photos.

  I held back the sarcastic response on the tip of my tongue. "Let me worry about that. It's my job, and I'm good at it."

  A smirk twisted her mouth. "Oh, forgive me, O Great One."

  Great. Pissed off female alert. "Look, I didn't mean it like that. I have a few options for getting a closer look. I haven't decided yet which to try first. And most civilians have very little understanding, or interest, in this kind of thing." I held my breath a little and prayed something didn't come sailing at my head.

  Her turn to sigh. "I’m sorry. I'm just worried, and I like knowing details. It helps me deal, and try to figure things out."

  "Understood, and accepted. I like details, too." I paused, thinking how to distract her from thinking about my tactics. She might not approve some of my methods of obtaining information. "Tell me about Lauren, things that aren't in this folder. I need to know her personality."

  "Really? I'd have thought you would want only the bare minimum." She paused for a second with a faraway expression. "Okay, so Lauren really likes animals. She spent summers in high school working at a little shelter, getting dogs ready to be adopted. She trained them, groomed them, everything."

  "Go on." Yeah, so she was right again. I rarely wanted more than minimal information about my targets. In this case though, knowing more about her might ease the way a little. At least, that's what I told myself.

  "Is that the kind of thing you're looking for?" The distant look lifted a little.

  "Yes, exactly. What kind of student was she?" I went on, over the next two hours, asking various questions, trying to get to know everything possible about my target, exactly the opposite of my usual detachment. I learned that Lauren volunteered in college with a program that that helped special needs kids have access to art therapy. And that she initially intended to teach, but the gallery job opened at the right time.

  Finally, I sat back, trying to digest it all. "Okay. It's late. I need to get some rest. Leave me your contact info." I scribbled my number on a scrap of paper. "This is mine, but it will go to voice mail. I rarely answer it right away, but I will get back to you."

  She complied, writing her info down for me. Gathering her papers back into the folder, she looked up at me. "When will I hear from you?"

  "When I need more information, or when I have your sister safely away from the Senator."

  Chapter Two

  "What do you fucking mean, you're taking the job?" Rufus' gravelly voice came over the line.

  "Exactly that. I'm going to take the job you sent me." Explaining shit to the bastard was an odd turn of events. He usually knew everything happening before anyone else had a clue.

  He sighed, cursing. "Trick, you dumb motherfucker. I sent that chick to you as a fucking joke. Ain't no way of getting some chick out from under a fucking Senator." He cursed some more. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

  I grinned at my phone. Getting a rise out of the normally unflappable Rufus was quite an accomplishment. "I was thinking I'm going to do the impossible."

  "How you figure to do that, exactly?" Now he just sounded pissed.

  I debated how much to tell him. Sure, King Rufus was a team member, and coordinated most of our jobs, but for this one, I might have to tap some personal resources. "I have some contacts I hope can put me in the right place at the right time."

  "You're doing a snatch? Fucking dumb move, man. It'll put your face on wanted posters all over the country."

  "Not exactly. I'm going to take a little time, convince her to leave on her own." I only hoped it went that way. I hadn't yet put enough thought into how to achieve it all. "Still have a lot to plan out."

  Rufus laughed. "Yeah, motherfucker, sure sounds like it. Let me know what you need for resources. I'll try to help." He ended the call, and left me to think.

  All during my shower, I thought, while the dirt of the previous mission went down the drain. Mostly, I thought about the haunted gray eyes that stared up at me from those photos. Why the hell did that look compel me to take the mission?

  I never chose missions based solely on instinct, or emotion, or whatever you wanted to call it. That was how people got killed. I carefully evaluated the risks, my resources, and only took missions with a high prospect of success. Sure, I took the jobs no one else would touch for whatever reason, but I made sure I would get the job done, too.

  This one was even far outside my skill set. I trekked through jungles, and across deserts, to retrieve stolen items, hunt down fugitives, or rescue kidnap victims. I rarely ventured into civilization, and actively shunned the company of other humans. Unless Senator Richardson ran off into the wilds to beat his girlfriend, I was screwed.

  Maybe I was getting old and senile. Poor decision-making came with that, right? With most of the jungle washed away, I toweled off, then cleaned and dressed the healing cut along my ribs. Five minutes later, I settled into my chair on the porch with a fresh beer and the thick folder I'd convinced Mrs. Niels to leave with me.

  She argued at first, insisting her husband told her not to let the papers out of her sight. Of course, he was right, but if I was going to get her sister back, I had to know absolutely everything I was dealing with. All objections fell before that argument, and I won.

  The next hour passed quickly, as I sipped my beer and committed everything in that folder to memory. By the time I finished both, twilight settled in, and mosquitos reminded me of the need for a shirt. Little bastards were bad this year, even though I'd eliminated all the standing water possible, by filling puddles in and making sure anything that could hold water drained earlier in the year.

  Back inside the house, I unlocked my office and settled in to learn everything I could about U.S. Senator Jared Richardson, the candidate seeking the Republican nomination for President. I only spent a few minutes running through the public stuff, fully aware every bit of it had been spun by experts to put Richardson in the best possible light to voters.

  What I needed lay far deeper. I needed the dirt. No man gets as far as he had without having a little dirt swept under the rug, or some well-polished skeletons in the closet. Those skeletons would become my best friends, and I would need to bring all that shit back out into the open. Doing so would be more dangerous than creeping into a cocaine king's compound to steal his favorite woman.

  My own security became my primary concern for the moment. If I tripped some alarm by digging around online, I might as well paint a target on my back. His people would be watching for anyone who looked beyond the surface.

  A VPN concealed my location and identity, bouncing my IP address across the globe a few dozen times. Under that mask, I hit the dark web. Several hours later, I found information, but still not enough. The search would have to go to the physical world now.

  I pored over the list of Richardson's campaign staffers, searching for the one person who knew everything. One woman remained constant, present in nearly all the press conference clips, and publicity photos, but never listed as a press source. Her name rarely appeared anywhere, and staff lists categorized her as a personal assistant. Unless I missed my guess, she was the fixer, the one who made the bad shit disappear, and made sure it never surfaced again.

  The small, mousy-looking woman stayed in the background, her distinctly unhappy expression betraying how she felt about her photograph being taken. She would prefer to remain out of sight, doing her thing without notice. So why did Richardson put her in the public eye at all? People like her protected a lifetime of secrets, and had the resources to break DC gridlock. And she was the one I needed to pry information out of.

  I needed to find her Achilles Heel. Everyone had one, even powerful political fixers. I pieced together a
ll the information I could find on her from various sources. Tabitha Wilkins was thirty-two, single, lived alone in a studio apartment when she wasn't on the road with the campaign. Her parents were deceased, and her younger brother lived on the streets, floating from one crack house to the next. He came to Tabitha for help whenever he got jammed up with a dealer. And she took care of him. Terrence, the brother, was her weakness.

  My eyes burned from staring at the screen for so long, and I was tired to begin with. I logged off and shut down, then headed for the kitchen and another beer. Fifteen minutes of local news on the TV, and I gave up and went to bed.

  I fell asleep right away, only for some fucked up dreams to haunt my ass through the night. I raced through the jungle, carrying a beautiful woman with gray eyes, while guerillas shot at us from every angle. Finally, I made it to extraction, and as the chopper lifted off, I took the time for a good look at the woman. Bullet holes riddled her body, but she continued to stare up at me, expecting me to save her.

  I woke in a cold sweat, trying to catch my breath. Dreams rarely bothered me, but when they did, they did a number on me. More sleep was out of the question. Coffee sounded like the way to go. The coffee brewed while I showered, and even though I was wide awake, those damn gray eyes still haunted me.

  Now, even if I wanted to, I couldn't refuse the mission. The vague outline of a plan that started taking shape in my mind last night had to be fleshed out, and I needed to get busy. Daylight arrived, and I started making calls. Rufus gave me a sound cussing for waking him, but agreed to get busy on digging up what I needed.

  Things started coming together before I stopped to grab something to eat. The call came at sixteen hundred hours. Terrence Wilkins had been located. While I waited for my ride, I got my gear together. Flag, from my former unit, and now one of the other mercenaries in our little band, touched his chopper down in the field behind the house. I sprinted down the small bank and climbed in. Flag lifted off as I strapped myself in.

  We sat down outside Chicago at a small private airfield where Flag kept his chopper between missions. His SUV sat by the hangar, and as soon as we had the helicopter secured, we loaded my gear into the back. A short time later, as the sun dipped low, we drove through the broken down, mostly abandoned neighborhood where Terrence Wilkins was last seen.

  Flag kept the SUV moving, even at stop signs, and watched our surroundings warily. "You sure your intel is reliable? I hate going into a place like this on less than a hundred percent ID."

  I didn't blame him. In the low evening light, the place took on a sinister, threatening air, as if bad guys waited behind every door. "We're solid. The ID came through Rufus from two local sources." I kept an eye out as much as he did. An ambush here would seriously fuck up my day.

  The place started to come to life as evening fell over the city. People came out of the condemned buildings where they'd laid up during the day and slept off the previous night's activities.

  "We need to park and walk. We're not even getting a decent look at people. Could have missed the bastard a dozen times over."

  Reluctant as hell, for good reason, Flag parked the SUV. "We come back to the truck stripped to the fucking frame, it's on you."

  "With any luck, we'll grab the guy and get out of here before anybody notices it." I shared the concern, but reasoned the area probably saw strange traffic too rarely for a gang to be waiting to strip it for parts.

  A whore came toward us, probably headed for more likely hunting grounds. All the males I saw seemed to be too busy figuring out how to make the money to get their fix. Pussy was about the last thing on their minds.

  Flag nodded in her direction. "Might as well start there."

  The whore picked up on our interest right away, and came directly over to us. "Mmm mmh, dis my lucky night. What you sweet mens lookin' for?"

  Flag winked in my direction, warning me to play along, and stepped up close, into the girl's space. "We're lookin' for a party. You interested?"

  She nodded, eager, and ran a finger down Flag's chest, all the while staring at me. "I got a place we can go."

  I shook my head. "Our place."

  Wariness tightened her eyes. "Ya'll ain't no serial killers, or nuttin' like that, right?" A nervous laugh escaped her, but she kept a little distance.

  Flag leaned down. "Nah, baby, we're just a couple of lonely guys lookin' for some fun. If you rather not, that's okay." He shrugged and started to turn away.

  "Now, I didn't say I wasn't interested. A girl gotta be safe out here, ya know?" She quickly agreed to our terms, offering no objection when we led her back to the SUV. Chick was all up for doing anything we wanted, and she seemed more than a little disappointed that we only wanted information. She sure didn't object to the Franklin I slid out of my pocket, though. Greed lit her eyes and she reached for that shit right away.

  "Ah-Ah. First, you answer the questions. Then, if you give us what we need, you get the bill." Dealing with people like her, the ones most of society would consider trash, was my comfort zone. I knew how to read them, how to talk to them. What the fuck was I going to do in some fucking high-society gig?

  She nodded. "Okay, just ask."

  I pulled a fairly recent mug-shot out of my pocket. "This guy, Terry-T. You know him?"

  She screwed up her face for an instant, like trying to decide how much to give for the money. "Yeah. He hang out over on Lex and Third."

  "Is that so? What he doin' there?" The corner at Lex and Third was a fucking cemetery on one side, church on the other.

  "Idiot done got him some religion." Her eyes rolled as if that were about the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "He hang out over there wit' a couple his junkie friends, preaching some bullshit about forgive an' forget to anybody that pass by."

  "Forgive and forget, huh? Why he doin' that?"

  "Pfft. Like I know? Terry-T be fucking whacked, that what he is. One minute he be talkin' 'bout his sister be some rich bitch, nex' he hustlin' for his next hit." The street outside the SUV suddenly seemed very interesting. "Look, I done say too much."

  I slid another hundred out of my pocket. "You know more to the story, you tell it."

  The wail of a siren reached us, but she ignored it. When cops came after her kind, they came in quiet, no sirens blaring. She took a deep breath, adjusted her tits to show more, and started talking. "Ever'body on the street know Terry-T. Crazy motherfucker. He come and go, but he always come back. Last time, he say he went to rehab and he clean now." She lifted a shoulder. "He be on that corner, preachin', come morning. An' the junkie friends hangin' wit' him, funny how they ain't tracked up, and they teeth is good."

  So Tabitha Wilkins' brother had babysitters now, making sure he didn't go down the wrong path again and bring shame on his sister's life. I thanked our new friend, gave her the money, along with a stern warning to forget we were ever there, and sent her on her way, despite the dirty looks from Flag.

  "What'd you give her the money for? Thought you wanted to confirm the story first."

  "Don't need to. It fits. If they stashed him, questions might come up. This way, they keep tabs on him, make sure he stays out of trouble, and if anyone asks, the Senator's being a real stand-up guy, helping his staff member with her poor brother." The dots connected easily. "And if ol' Terry-T becomes a problem, the tragedy of his relapse and death by overdose will affect the Senator deeply. Hell, he might even write some big legislation to deal with the drug issue in our nation."

  I had what I needed. Tomorrow, the real work would start. Rather than go home, I crashed at a hotel for the night. That night, I slept like the dead, a dangerous thing for a man in my line of work.

  Chapter three

  I avoided meeting my own eyes in the reflection as I carefully applied concealer to the faint shadow of the bruise still gracing my cheekbone. If you had told me a few years ago I would be standing here, covering up the place where my boyfriend's fist accidentally banged into my face, I'd have laughed at you. Yet here
I was, doing exactly that.

  Of course I knew the warning signs and statistics about domestic violence. What happened between Jared and me could hardly be compared to that. He didn't beat me. A man in his position, under a microscope in his professional life, could surely be forgiven if he became frustrated, even angry, and lashed out.

  Still lost in thought, I dressed, careful to choose something he would find appropriate. With all the primaries coming up, the mounting pressure made him more likely to lose control, and little things got under his skin. One of my more important jobs now was to minimize stress for him in any way I could.

  My old friends and family were out of my life now, but it didn't matter. I had Jared, and my future lay with him. I made new friends easily, and he became my family. After we dated for several months, I left my job as director of a small art gallery, and dedicated myself to helping him succeed with his ambitions.

  I appeared at fundraisers and various functions at his side, and everywhere I went, people recognized me. My picture had been in every tabloid at least once, and I was in all the society columns on a regular basis. If, God forbid, I ever left, I could never go back to the relative obscurity of my life before. Failure was not an option, no matter the cost to me personally.

  Of course, things would be better once Jared was in the White House. He and I would be married right after his Inauguration, and without the stress of the constant campaigning and fundraising, the gentle man I fell in love with would return.

  I steadfastly ignored the niggling doubts about the months remaining until the General Election, or exactly how being the Commander In Chief could be less stressful than being a candidate. Jared promised, and I had to believe him. Anything else felt like a betrayal of his trust, or admitting defeat.

  In the car on the way to breakfast, I double checked my calendar for the day. He would ask my plans, and I wanted to make sure I gave him accurate information. The driver glanced at me in the rearview a couple of times, as if he wanted to say something, but he remained silent.