Now it was only a matter of time until the boy gave the authorities a detailed sketch of her face or enough information for the Americans to realize the Syrian Government wasn’t responsible, it was the rebels who’d attacked the mall, and they weren’t finished yet.
The Syrian president would crush those who’d tried to implicate him in international terrorism and the US wouldn’t stop him. Her children would be caught up in the fighting and probably die.
She checked her phone, waiting for a text from Abdullah. Where was he? Out of the corner of her eye she saw a tall, dark-haired man shepherd a woman and child through the snow, past her car toward a black 4X4. The man’s hair and pants were damp, snow clinging to him as he moved swiftly through the frigid air. It was them, she realized, sucking in a shocked breath. She was glad for the accumulation of snow on the windshield obscuring her from view.
What had happened? Had Abdullah not found them in time? Where was he?
She thought about the pistol in the glove box, but the man was obviously law enforcement and the harshness of his features caused a little shiver of trepidation to flicker over her skin. Before she could decide whether or not to attempt to take care of the problem herself, the black SUV pulled away. She memorized the license plate.
Abdullah had obviously failed in his mission.
Had he been captured? Should she leave? Sargon favored the arrogant man and she didn’t dare cross either of them. If he came out in a few minutes, walking into a snowstorm without the jacket he’d left on her back seat, he’d be angry. Her face still throbbed from his earlier outrage. Her head pounded, a mixture of injury, cold and fear.
Squad cars sped along the nearby roads. If she didn’t leave soon she’d be trapped. Obviously, the cops were waiting for the terrorists to turn up to kill the woman and child, but the boy was gone. Whisked away.
She had to leave.
The phone rang and she checked the number.
The twinge of unease mingled with the hope of hearing her children’s voices.
“Hello?” she said.
“Has the errand been completed?”
How had he heard about the boy? Had Abdullah called him without telling her? Probably.
“Not yet.” They were both careful with their choice of words in case someone was listening in. The fact he’d called her on yet another disposable cell that Abdullah had given her should be enough to protect her identity, but she’d rather he hadn’t called at all. The sudden need to hear her children’s voices made her reckless. “Can I speak to Dahlia or Corinne?” she asked.
“No.” The word was snapped out. “Complete the rest of the errand, then you can speak to them.”
She shriveled on the inside.
Finding the boy now was going to be next to impossible. She ached to talk to her girls just for a brief moment of time. “Please?” she begged.
She heard girls’ laughter and then shouts of “Mommy!” before they were gone again.
Sargon’s voice gentled. “They are too busy playing to stop and talk. What can you tell me?”
“We were too late.” Emotion squeezed her throat. Sargon hated failure. She didn’t want him taking out her failure on her children. “But I do have the license plate of the vehicle they used to take him away.” It was probably useless but she reeled it off anyway.
“They’ll put him in the Witness Protection Program.” There was a long silence while he mulled over her information. “All is not lost. I have someone who might be able to find out where they take him next. I have another task for you. Go home and wait for instruction.”
What the hell? No. No! She was done. Finished. She opened her mouth to tell him so—
“Girls, girls, come talk to your mother…”
Hope surged for a moment only to be doused when the line went dead. She let out a sob then rested her head on the steering wheel as hot tears welled in her eyes. Cell connections to that part of the world were notoriously unreliable. Or had he done it on purpose to remind her he had control of her babies?
She flung the cell on the seat. “Adad, if you weren’t dead, I’d kill you myself.” She wiped away the tears and put the car in drive. Abdullah had either been arrested or he’d escaped another way. She left the parking lot, keeping an eye out for the man, then turned in the opposite direction that the SUV had taken.
Her mouth went dry. What would Sargon make her do next? He’d never mentioned details of what would happen after the mall. Of course, she probably wasn’t supposed to have survived the attack. She turned left and got lost in a tangle of roads, traffic being streamed away from the mall.
Abdullah hadn’t expected her to come home at all, she realized. The apartment was rented under a false name that couldn’t be linked to her real identity. He’d assumed he could use it as a safe house because she’d be dead. Betrayal at the way her life was so callously disregarded cut deep—except what had she really expected from these people?
Her tires slid on the slick road and she almost spun out.
It felt like a reflection of her life—at the mercy of things she couldn’t control. She managed to keep the car pointed in the right direction and tried again. Needing to get home. Needing to find a moment of quiet in a day that had exploded into hell. It shocked her how alone she was right now. No friends. No family. No one who would claim her if her part in this came to light. She should have died today. It would have been easier than facing the future.
***
Elan watched from a distance.
This particular loose-end threatened everything. He’d thought the former soldier would be able to deal with it, but the boy and his mother had been taken into federal custody and the Syrian arrested. This was bad.
The second phase of this operation was by far the most delicate and critical. There was no room for error. Hopefully the boy knew nothing, but regardless the threat had to be eliminated.
He swore.
He did not like to kill children, but children grew up to be warriors and sometimes they were a necessary sacrifice. Did he take care of this himself? He didn’t want to step in unless he had to. Sargon had to be aware of the problem otherwise he wouldn’t have sent the woman and his puppet to deal with it. The old Syrian would be panicking in his Lebanese bolt-hole, fearful he wouldn’t get the rest of his money, wouldn’t get his chance at power.
Elan narrowed his eyes. He’d watch and wait. Give Sargon a chance to fulfill his promises without his intervention. The woman in the blue car was another loose-end though Sargon had her on a tight leash. She might be useful now that the soldier had been detained.
Elan loved his family, but he was glad he’d never had children. Too easy to exploit. Too easy to kill. He disappeared into the thickening storm, nothing but a ghost of a man.
CHAPTER SIX
Stars shone brightly in a deep navy sky, reflected by the fresh drape of bone-white snow as they drove down a long, curved driveway. Six inches had fallen since they’d left the hotel. An added burden on a city’s resources already stretched to the limit as it struggled to deal with the devastating effects of a terrorist attack.
Vivi was exhausted, but fury gave her the energy to do what she needed to do. How dare someone decide her child had to die? How dare some stranger walk into a swimming pool and hold her son underwater until he was nearly unconscious?
The terrorist attack on the mall hadn’t felt personal, but that? That had felt personal.
For the first time, she regretted ignoring her ex-husband’s demands that she learn to use a firearm. She wished she’d paid more attention when he’d discussed security concerns. Not that she’d run to him for help. The cold-hearted bastard had tried to stuff Michael into an institution years ago. Forget Michael was an innocent child who needed his family. Forget Michael was his son. He’d been jealous. David hadn’t liked the amount of time she put into Michael’s care. He hadn’t liked the fact she didn’t dress up to the nines in designer dresses or hang on his arm at work functions anymore.
He hadn’t liked the fact she was too tired and worried to screw his brains out whenever the hell he wanted it.
Well screw him and screw the bastards trying to kill her baby. She wasn’t going to let any of them near him.
Vivi stared out the car window at the house that was to be her prison for some indeterminate amount of time. It was set along the banks of the Mississippi near a jagged ravine. Picturesque and attractive, but a jail nonetheless. She pushed open her car door before Brennan reached the handle to open it for her. She hadn’t expected him to accompany them but he had, and she was damn sure he had more important things to do than babysit her and Michael.
She climbed out, boots crunching in the thick snow. Her injured feet throbbed. She’d replaced the bandages while they’d waited at the FBI field office, but they still hurt. Minor injuries considering what others had suffered, just enough to remind her how lucky they had been. She turned to get her son out of the car. Hands clamped on her hips a moment before someone physically lifted her aside. Brennan. He let her go, the impressions of his fingers branded on her skin. The man was always touching her. She wasn’t used to it—didn’t know why she didn’t tell him to stop.
He reached inside the vehicle, coming out with Michael cradled in his arms. He raised a quizzical brow at her standing there open-mouthed.
Words dried up on her tongue. The guy bowled her over. Not with words. With actions. Actions that had saved her son’s life twice today and he was still putting himself in the line of fire for a little boy he didn’t know. She knew he was just doing his job but it was hard to separate all her emotions from that simple fact.
Feelings of attraction seemed foolish and juvenile when they were running for their lives, but it had been a long time since she’d felt any of those things and it unsettled her.
Another agent grabbed her suitcase and laptop. The feds had scrambled the latter in some way so she could still use it but it didn’t reveal her location except to them. They had a decoy set up somewhere they could monitor and hopefully use to lure out the bad guys.
Traps.
They were setting traps left, right, and center because some mystery terror organization wanted to kill her son.
She inhaled a massive rib-straining breath of cold air. She wanted to yell her anger at the world, but noise traveled far in this sort of terrain so she remained quiet as she followed the two feds to the front door, holding every particle of fear and frustration inside.
“Is it safe here?” she asked instead.
They’d driven for forty minutes but she knew they’d traveled in circles to circumvent anyone trying to follow them. They were probably only fifteen minutes outside the city limits of Minneapolis. Close enough for a rapid response team to reach them in an emergency, but remote enough to ensure their privacy. Hopefully.
Brennan had changed into dry clothes at the field office and looked a lot more approachable and a damn sight warmer than he had earlier, wearing a down vest, worn jeans, blue, plaid shirt and a pair of heavy winter boots. The tall, lean frame and the handsome face kept tricking her brain into thinking how attractive he was, when she should have been paying attention to all the effort being put into their safety—except when she thought about that she wanted to scream with fear and frustration.
This was all so crazy.
“It’s a safe house used by the US Marshal Service and should be secure for now.” He gave her a patient look. His patience made her anger drain. Some of her desperation ebbed.
A bald man with a handlebar mustache opened the door and she, Brennan and Michael, quickly slipped inside. The other fed stayed with the car.
The first marshal indicated Brennan follow another marshal, a tall blond woman with some serious curves, up the stairs. Vivi went too. The marshals had prepared a room with a double bed for them. Brennan slipped Michael’s boots off and dropped them gently on the floor. He pulled back the covers and very carefully laid Michael on the bed, unzipped his jacket and eased it from his lax body.
Vivi stared in fascination.
This is what David should have been doing. This was what her son was missing. How pathetic that it took multiple attempts on his life to get a man to tuck him in at night. Tears that she’d held back all day suddenly wanted to flow but she blinked them away, then swiveled to find the pretty marshal watching her.
The woman held out her hand and whispered. “Deputy US Marshal Keene—or you can call me Penny. Cute kid you’ve got there.”
“Thank you.” Vivi shook her hand. It didn’t escape her notice that the other woman’s eyes skimmed down Brennan in a way that suggested she thought he was cute too. It was none of Vivi’s business. He was none of her business.
“How long will we need to be here?” she asked just as Brennan came out of the room and eased the door closed behind him, leaving it open just an inch.
“Let’s go downstairs and discuss it,” he said.
DUSM Keene led the way. Brennan sticking to Vivi’s shoulder like a shadow.
An awareness sizzled between them. Or maybe it was just her—an exaggerated case of hero worship. Or maybe he had this effect on every female he met. Maybe he wasn’t cognizant of the fact his handsome face combined with that protective demeanor was a hell of a draw to women—especially frazzled, terrified, single moms on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And surely she must be about to lose her mind if she was thinking about being attracted to a guy when her child’s life was in danger.
Her head was going to explode.
She touched her forehead and took a deep, calming breath. He put his hand on her lower back and it grounded her in a way she didn’t expect. As if he knew she was going crazy on the inside and was trying to help. Maybe she should just give herself a break for being human and wanting to think about something other than bloodshed and death.
They got to the kitchen where she was introduced to the guy with the mustache, DUSM Bob Townsend.
Vivi didn’t want to appear ungrateful but all she really wanted was to go home and forget any of this had ever happened. “How long will we need to be here?” she asked again.
The marshals looked at Brennan probably because the FBI was in charge of this operation. God. Her stomach hurt just thinking about it.
“It depends,” he said.
She crossed her arms and faced him. “On?”
“Us rounding up all the people involved in today’s attack, or…”
“Or?”
“Or Michael being able to draw the faces of everyone he saw inside that store and therefore neutralizing the threat.”
Silence boomed in the quiet of the house.
“You don’t understand.” How many times had she said that in relation to her son over the years? Because no one did understand. Not even her. “After everything that happened I don’t know when or even if he’ll start drawing again.”
“You have to make him try.”
She shook her head. “Trying to force him will make him withdraw even more. I can’t make him do anything.”
She jolted when Brennan picked up one of her hands that was clenched into a tight fist. He massaged her fingers as if he understood she was so uptight she was about to implode.
“Vivi.” His voice was deep and soft and caressed her ragged nerves. But she wouldn’t be played. She wouldn’t let Michael be played. “There is no handbook for this situation. I’m just saying that the fastest way to neutralize the threat to Michael is to make sure we have access to all the information he has locked up inside his head. Then he ceases to be a threat to their organization.
“In the meantime we’ll be working our asses off trying to catch these bastards and end the threat that way. And on that note I need to head back to the office and see where we’re at.” But he didn’t let go of her hand. He stroked and massaged until slowly the tension loosened and she unclenched her fingers and her jaw, and let out a slow breath. It was a long time since someone had touched her in comfort. Even longer in desire.
Heat
rose in her cheeks and she pulled her hand away. It was her own fault, she knew that. She pushed people away. Everyone except her son.
Both marshals watched the exchange with interest. She didn’t know what they thought or what was normal in this sort of situation. Maybe this was normal? This instant attachment to someone who’d saved her child’s life. How could it not be?
“Write out a list of things you or Michael need and I’ll try and bring them by in the morning.” His dark eyes were warm and full of patient concern.
She stepped away. She didn’t want to respond to him this way. She didn’t want to respond to anyone. All she wanted was to go home.
Quickly, she wrote a short list while their protectors discussed how long it would take backup to arrive and the firepower capability on site. Every word made her insides shrivel a little. How foolish to think her life was complicated enough when she’d gotten up that morning. Or even after they’d dragged a panicked little boy from an MRI machine. Her life had been rosy. She’d just been too stupid to understand.
As much as she liked Brennan, as much as she was attracted to him—had been from the moment he’d pulled her to her feet in the crowded mall that morning—she was not about to let him manipulate her into doing something she didn’t want to do.
She turned away without a word. Left them to huddle and plot like the security experts they purported to be. The simple fact was she didn’t trust anyone. Especially not when it came to her son. She went upstairs and crawled into bed beside Michael, hugging his slight body to hers. His heartbeat reverberated fiercely against her palm, that small vital organ the noisiest part of his body.
***
Eighteen hours after the attack, Jed was at the FBI field office on Freeway Boulevard waiting for the briefing to start. It was dark outside but the snow cast an eerie light over the city to the south.
Cold Pursuit (Cold Justice) (Volume 2) Page 7