by T C Archer
A dim light flashed in her peripheral vision. The guard had completed checking the cottages and was headed around to the rear of the mansion. Jesse leaned against the tree, took a deep breath, then started toward the manor. A two-foot corridor of safety between motion sensor lights was all she had until she reached the side of the house, where Harris had blinded the sensors. She rounded the corner of the mansion to find the stoop empty.
Jesse hurried to the house, reached the door, and tried the knob. It turned easily. Shivers raced up her spine. This was almost too easy. Would the real trouble come when Harris tried to coax Amanda downstairs? If she refused to leave with him, he would meet Jesse at the side door, alone. She would then be forced to go into the house and sedate Amanda—something Harris had opposed from the start.
Houghton House had issued no warning to staff that Jesse was wanted, which didn’t mean the administrators hadn’t been warned. If Harris got caught with Amanda, he had a chance as passing it off as her getting lost. She seldom said more than two words at a time, so it was unlikely she would contradict him. If Jesse were caught with her, things could get stickier.
Jesse turned the knob, pushed the door open a fraction, and peered into the dark kitchen. The doorjamb to her right splintered in unison with a tiny thwang as a bullet hit the wood. She shoved forward, rolling onto tiled floor. She yanked the PPK from her waistband as she flattened against the floor and pointed it at the open door.
Her heart thudded. The silenced shot had to have come from the arboretum—forty yards away. Lanton was no marksman. The bullet had missed her by a bare inch. He had sent a pro. Blue Team, Green Team—Cole? She tried remembering if Cole had said anything about being a marksman, but the rush of blood roared in her ears. Not Tom, either. He was strictly intellect.
Morales.
Jesse scrambled to her knees and crawled to the cabinets on her left. The new vantage gave her a sliver’s view of the northern section of the arboretum, where the angle of the shot placed the shooter. She could see nothing in the dense shadows.
A stair-tread squeaked behind her. She twisted toward the sound, gun raised. A man’s large frame filled the landing at the bottom of the stairs. Jesse tightened her finger on the trigger. Something flitted in her peripheral vision outside the door. The figure on the landing paused and she realized he’d seen the open door. He shifted again, this time in her direction.
“Jesse? Jesse! It’s me, girl. Don’t shoot!”
She released the trigger with effort, recognition of Harris’ voice barely registering through the roar in her head. He started toward her.
“Get back!” she hissed.
Another figure appeared on the landing behind him. Her heart leaped into her throat before she realized the figure was too big to be Amanda. Jesse pushed to her feet. Blinding light slashed across her vision. Someone had turned on the lights!
She lunged forward. “Get down!”
Her arms closed around Harris’ large frame. They went down in unison with the spit of a stealth rifle shot. Harris went limp. Warmth spread across Jesse’s t-shirt, soaking through to the skin.
“Jesse!” another voice cried as the room plunged into darkness.
Jesse leaped to her feet and whirled in the direction of Cole’s voice.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Jesse blinked furiously in an effort to adjust to the darkness—and center the PPK on Cole’s hulking figure. A bone-jarring blow to her arm forced the weapon from her grip. The gun clattered to the tile. She threw a hard right punch into air as the gun slid across the room. A hand closed around her wrist. She drew back an elbow for a jab at her attacker’s ribs, but was yanked into his arms. They toppled to the ground. Even blind, she knew Cole’s body.
“Let me go, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“Hush,” he whispered, hugging her face to his neck. “Whoever took the shot is still out there.”
“What have you done with Amanda?” she demanded.
Jesse jerked a leg into the air and slammed the heel of her shoe onto Cole’s leg. He stiffened. Satisfaction rocketed through her. With any luck, she had struck his gunshot wound. She lifted her foot again, but he threw a leg over hers and hugged her closer.
“Stop it,” he ordered.
“I’ll kill you,” she hissed.
“I’ve got to make sure Harris is all right,” Cole whispered.
She twisted her head free and squinted in Harris’ direction. “Harris,” she called in a whisper.
No answer.
Jesse shoved at Cole’s chest. “Let me go.”
A tiny click sounded, then a faint voice said over a radio, “Cardinal, report. What’s with the lights?”
“Mockingbird is in the roost,” Cole whispered. “Rogue Raven is outside the door.”
“Hawk closing in,” the man replied, and the radio went dead.
“Bastard,” Jesse muttered.
Cole tightened his bear hug. “Stop it,” he ordered. “Amanda is fine. It’s Harris I’m worried about.”
“I don’t believe a word you say,” she snapped. “Let me go check on him.”
“This isn’t finished,” Cole said. “You’ve got to trust me.”
Jesse gave a harsh laugh. “Let go.”
He did. She scrambled to her knees and glanced around the room. The clouds must have parted because a thin strip of moonlight lay across Harris’ motionless body near the door. Cole got to his knees as she crawled to Harris. A second later, Cole was beside her. Jesse pressed fingers against Harris’ neck for a pulse. Strong and even. She dropped a palm to the tile beside his shoulder and it slipped on something slick. Blood. Jesse wiped the blood on her jeans, then carefully probed his shoulder.
Harris grunted. “You trying to finish the job?”
Relief flooded her. “Not me.” She looked at Cole. “We’ve got to get him out of here fast.”
“Not until they find the guy outside,” Cole replied. “We have no idea—”
Jesse straightened and leveled a punch at Cole’s jaw.
He landed on his ass, then straightened, rubbing his jaw. “Got it out of your system?”
Harris gave a hoarse laugh. “Don’t count on that.” He began coughing hard.
Jesse’s heart leaped into her throat. “Give me something to bind the wound,” she ordered Cole.
At the sound of fabric tearing she looked up to see him ripping a strip off his shirt. She ran her gaze around the room. There had to be something to staunch the flow of blood. The sink. Jesse scrambled on hands and knees to the sink. What looked like a towel lay on the dish drain board. She felt the object. A terrycloth towel. She smelled it. Fresh. Jesse hurried back to Harris.
“Give me the shirt,” she said to Cole and covered the wound with the towel.
He handed her the strip of fabric. “Lift him,” she instructed.
Cole carefully lifted Harris by the shoulders. Jesse slipped the cloth under his shoulder blade and brought one end around his neck, the other under his arm. With the towel over the wound, she cinched the dressing tight.
“Good and snug,” Cole said.
Jesse riveted her gaze onto him. The moonlight passing through the window behind shadowed his features. She checked the bandage on Harris’s shoulder.
“You’re telling me the guy out there isn’t yours?” she asked.
“If he was, would I be in here?”
“How the hell would I know?”
Cole settled Harris back onto the floor, then rested a hand on hers.
She pulled free. “Find out what’s going on out there,”
Cole said in a murmur, “Blue Bird, report.”
Two seconds later, “Cardinal, so far, all clear. No trace of Raven.”
Jesse sat back. “Isn’t that just peachy?”
Cole tightened the final knot in Harris’ dressing and took a deep breath. “What reason could I have for lying?”
“None of this makes sense, Murphy. If you didn’t intend on taking Lanton down, why both
er going after him with me?” Her heart constricted. Why bother with me at all?
“Girl’s dense, ain’t she?” Harris rasped.
“You picked a fine time to return to consciousness,” she said.
“I been conscious all along,” he replied. “Playin’ possum’s what kept me alive more than once.”
Jesse choked a laugh. “Thank God for small favors.” She returned her attention to Cole. “Where’s Amanda?”
“We had to be sure when Lanton came—”
“You used her as bait!” Jesse lunged for him.
Cole grabbed her shoulders, slamming her back onto the floor. She was breathing hard. She barely stifled a cry at sight of figures appearing in the doorway. The lights went on and she gasped at sight of the man standing in front of six agents.
Blue Leader.
“Take Miss Evans,” he instructed.
Two men brushed past him.
“Get the medic in here,” he ordered.
Cole rose to his feet, pulling Jesse with him. “Sir—”
“Step aside, Murphy,” Henry Neilson ordered.
Jesse tried to pull free of Cole, but he held fast.
“Can’t do that, Sir. Perhaps you haven’t been briefed—”
“I’ve been briefed,” Neilson replied in clipped tones. “Stand down.”
Cole went rigid. “I’m under orders, Sir.”
“Orders I’m countermanding.”
“Sir,” Jesse cut in, “I need to be sure my sis—”
“You will both stand down,” he snapped. He took three paces and stopped within an inch of them. “I don’t give a damn what you two thought you were doing. It’s finished.” Nielson glanced at Cole’s hand still gripping her arm. “Release her, or I’ll do it for you.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Grey walls, a cot, and sterile air. Jesse shifted her cheek against the rough wool of the army blanket she lay on. The place didn’t smell of urine, and no screams echoed in the corridors, but there was little difference between this cell and Perez’s prison. OIA would lock her up and throw away the key. Jesse could live with that, if not for the certainty Lanton would eventually get to Amanda.
Nothing she’d said in the eight-hour grilling had moved her interrogators. She hadn’t expected to be accepted back into the fold, but neither had she expected to be treated like the traitor Lanton was. Jesse gave a bitter laugh. If she hadn’t rescued Cole in Columbia, she would have had a chance. He’d convinced her they would get Lanton. They had a common goal. He cared.
Still, his actions didn’t make sense. Why had he gone to Houghton House? Rage boiled to the top. He had caught her at Houghton House. Without him, Neilson wouldn’t have gotten a lead on her fast enough to stop her from getting Amanda out. Tears sprang to her eyes. Was Amanda still at Houghton House? For all Jesse knew—she choked back a sob. Her interrogators, Wesley and MacDonald, had been unwilling to talk about Amanda. After two hours of threats, cajoling and begging, she’d finally given in with the hope they would answer her questions if she cooperated. They hadn’t.
She’d lied to herself right down the line. Why did it matter? Cole had been nothing more than a one-night stand. Would it hurt so much if not for Amanda? The unexpected question gave her pause. Maybe not. It was one thing when a man lied to a woman, quite another when he sacrificed an innocent person on the altar of his lust. No, not just lust. He’d had a full-fledged agenda. He had wanted Perez and Lanton. He’d worked side-by-side with her to get Lanton only to let him go. Why?
Why come for her at Houghton House? He could have let the shooter kill her—but the shooter had missed her by a hair’s breadth. That was it. Cole was back up.
The heavy metal door to her cell shuddered open.
Jesse sprang to her feet. Neilson entered, followed by Cole. She flushed warm and looked from one to the other, aware panic had shifted her heartbeat into overdrive. She wanted to scream at them, felt her mouth open to do so, then forced it closed. Cole was free—she wasn’t. Smart, she told herself. Play it smart. Don’t let them see you sweat.
But something must have shown on her face, for Cole brushed past Nielson. “Jess.” He was at her side, reaching for her. She stepped back, but he caught her arm and hugged her to his chest.
“Where’s my sister?” Tears streamed down her face. “I want the truth. I deserve that much.”
“She’s fine,” Cole soothed. “I told you that last night.”
Jesse struck him with a half-hearted punch. “Liar! What do you want from me?”
Nielson appeared beside them. “Miss Evans.”
She shoved free of Cole and turned a cold eye on her superior.
He didn’t flinch from her gaze, only gave a tiny nod. “Playing James Bond on your own is a bitch. Isn’t it?”
Jesse blinked, then fury made her see red. “Where the hell were you?”
He gave a short laugh, which infuriated her all the more. “I’ve wanted Robert Lanton for a long time. You nearly botched the deal.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What—”
He held up a hand. “First off, rest assured, your sister is well, and in good hands.”
“She’s my sister. You have no right to use her.”
“We didn’t use your sister, we got her out of there,” Nielson cut in. “You have Cole to thank for that.”
She looked at Cole.
“Did it ever occur to you, the right thing to do was to come home?” Neilson asked.
The significance of the question didn’t hit her at first. She couldn’t tear her eyes from Cole. He stared at her, brows raised as if they were two high school kids caught necking, and he was asking, “What now?”
She finally looked at her boss.
“I didn’t think so.” He released a tired breath. “Your devotion to your sister is admirable, but you went about things all wrong.”
“You know Lanton is guilty?” she asked.
Nielson gave her a disgusted look. “What makes you think you’re the only one with brains around here?”
“You let those men die?”
“No.” Sadness filled his eyes. “That caught all of us off guard.”
“Then why—”
He waved a hand, indicating the room. “Why all this?”
Jesse nodded. She startled when his eyes narrowed slightly.
“You pissed me off,” he said.
Her jaw dropped. “You put me in here on purpose?”
“No. You put yourself in here. I just enjoyed it.”
“What?”
“Did you expect to walk away from this without some consequences?”
Jesse couldn’t answer. Truth was, she hadn’t expected to see Neilson or any other Blue or Green Team member again.
She nodded toward Cole. “What about him?”
“What about him?”
“He was playing the Lone Ranger, too.”
Nielson gave a single shake of his head. “He was under orders.”
Jesse frowned. “Lanton’s orders.”
“My orders.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Jesse stared at Nielson. “You put Cole under orders? Why didn’t someone inform me?”
Neilson laughed “How? You were out in the cold. You set everything in motion. We had to ride along and try to salvage what remained. Besides, would you have believed him?”
“You could have—”
“Could have what? Come to Columbia and tipped off every agent and drug lord in North and South America that Henry Neilson had decided to vacation in Columbia just when one of his top operatives was wanted for treason?”
Jesse shook her head stubbornly. “You could have tried.”
“Really? You mean like when you showed up at the bank then ran out on us? Or when we waited for you at Bogotá International and you got spooked?”
She stared at him.
“That’s right,” Nielson said. “It was a perfect set-up; the rogue agent gone bad. I didn’t like it—too much could
go wrong.” He leveled a hard gaze on her. “And it did. Once word got out you had returned to the States, then headed back to Columbia, I lost the ability to say you were innocent. Washington decided you’d try to take your sister back to Columbia.”
Jesse stumbled back a pace. Cole caught her, and eased her onto the bed.
“After that,” Nielson went on, “the best I could do was send you someone I knew you could count on.”
She glanced up at Cole. A gentle smile moved across his face and she wondered if she hadn’t fallen down the rabbit hole.
“After you two met with Lanton in the warehouse,” Nielson went on, “Cole reported how things went down, then headed for Amanda. We already had someone there, and he got her out before Lanton’s man arrived.”
Jesse’s head swam. She had been wrong, right down the line. “Where is she?”
Cole sat down beside her. “Not at Houghton House. We didn’t get the guy who shot at you.”
She nodded.
“You’re lucky,” Nielson said. “Once the committee heard the taped conversation between you and Green Leader that got you off the hook—barely.”
Jesse startled. “Taped?” She looked at Cole.
He nodded. “You really have to quit running off. And next time, stick with the plan.”
She frowned in confusion.
“We had him pretty good, but we wanted one other thing,” Cole said.
Jesse fought back tears. “Tom?”
“No,” Nielson said with vehemence. “That was a second surprise. If he hadn’t destroyed evidence of a crime, we would simply dismiss him. Now…” Neilson sighed. “Lanton’s dead. His wife killed him.”
Jesse was sure she would pass out.
Cole’s brow knit. “You all right, Jess?”
“Lanton’s wife?” Her voice came out as a croak.
“Right,” he replied. “She’s the one who tipped off Perez about Green Team’s rescue attempt.”
Jesse stared. “Why—Perez spoke only of Lanton.” A sickening feeling settled in her stomach. Perez said the whole affair had been orchestrated. She assumed he meant by Robert Lanton.