“So many guys in D.C.,” she said after finishing a bite of food, “are assholes, to put it mildly.”
“Gotta be a few good men out there though, right?” He leaned back in his seat and studied the woman before him.
A woman who could probably bring D.C. to its knees.
Hell, she’d nearly had him tripping all over himself back in Mexico. On the plane home, he’d considered chucking his rules about dating out the window.
Within an hour of knowing her, he could tell she was a woman you didn’t let go of. A once-in-a-lifetime kind of woman.
She was Brad’s once-in-a-lifetime though, he had to remind himself. Surely she’d find someone else in the future, but he was crazy to think that someone could ever be him.
But it threw him off that even being within arm’s reach of her, somehow managed to dissolve some of the darkness that had consumed him for years. The darkness of what he learned yesterday, on the ten-year anniversary no less, should’ve swallowed him whole . . . and he wondered if she was the reason why he hadn’t totally lost his shit and gone to the range to tear up a target, or maybe a hundred.
Of course, Sam had been the reason why he’d unleashed more intensity than normal in the boxing ring with Asher that morning. He’d been so damn pissed to discover she not only lied, but she was off-limits, that Asher about hung up his gloves, which wasn’t like him, mid-fight.
“You’re amazing, you know.” Her whispered words had him peering at her.
The slow drum beat of his heart scaled up with each passing second of silence.
She sipped her drink. “I just don’t know how you do so much. To go into the Naval Academy, which is like really hard to get into, then to switch from—”
“Your FBI pal told you all of this about me?”
“Um.” She set her drink back down onto the makeshift dinner table. “Jason used to brag about you whenever the three of us hung out.”
His stomach squeezed at her words, and the tight pressure in his chest nearly eclipsed every feeling inside of him, and he fought to catch his breath.
“Owen, are you okay?”
“I can’t do this.” He stood and dragged a palm down his jaw, blinking a few times.
“Do what?”
He shook his head. “I can’t talk about the past.”
She nodded a few times. “Okay.” She rose and came to stand before him and gently touched his forearm.
He lifted his eyes to find hers, and it had emotion choking in his throat again, which further irritated him.
“We don’t have to talk about the past, then.” Her lower lip quivered ever so slightly, and he found himself wishing he could kiss the tremble away and make everything right. “I’m sorry.”
She’d been apologizing nonstop since he’d learned the truth, but it still didn’t make things right; it still didn’t change the fact that now he felt something for her, and it was her damn fault.
“I didn’t mean to upset you again. I’m—”
“Then you never should have lied to me back in Mexico.” And the words scraped against his tongue as he said them, knowing he was so damn screwed.
Chapter Ten
Owen glanced at Asher riding shotgun in the other SUV behind the Escalade, both of which had been sent by POTUS. He tipped his head in greeting, but when he redirected his focus to Sam, she remained a statue before the door with Luke standing impatiently waiting for her to get inside.
Luke had pounded on their door not even three minutes ago, alerting him to their sudden trip to meet with the president. Jess hadn’t gotten ahold of Secretary Handlin, and Owen couldn’t help but assume the worst now.
She peeked at Owen from over her shoulder. “I still don’t get why we’re going to the White House.”
“Classified.” Luke’s jaw tightened, an obvious pinch of irritation. They were clearly in a hurry, and they needed to get their asses on the road, especially if they were being summoned by POTUS.
“This is Luke, by the way. Jessica’s brother.” Owen motioned to the door, hoping she’d finally slip inside the vehicle. “He’s not normally so curt, but—”
“We’re running late,” Luke said brusquely and left their sides to hop into the front passenger seat.
Once Sam finally slipped inside, Owen got in next to her and glanced at the Secret Service agent behind the wheel.
Her fingertips rubbed up and down her goose-bump-covered thighs. “Don’t you guys work in the private sector, though? I guess I’m trying to wrap my head around all of this.”
Luke twisted around to view both of them as the SUV rolled out of the parking garage. “Yeah, we do.” But the way he said it would’ve set off alarm bells for even the most naïve of people, and Sam surely wasn’t one. “Secret Service will keep an eye on you while we’re with the president.”
Luke’s words had Sam looking out the tinted windows, and she kept her gaze locked there as the city of D.C. scrolled by all the way until they’d circled around to a private entrance.
And within ten minutes, Sam had been whisked away by agents, and he’d been ushered in a hurry to the Oval.
His gaze skated the room, taking in the rest of his team, who stood firm before the desk in a line as if waiting for a commander to yell at ease. Being inside the Oval, he felt like he was on the set of the show, West Wing. It was surreal, to say the least.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice.” President Rydell scratched at his chin and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “Unfortunately, Secretary Handlin is in the hospital, but he’s not using his real name to protect his privacy.” He allowed the information to settle in the room, for the team to absorb the news. “We’re not optimistic he’ll be back any time soon. We were speaking in my office last night when he collapsed. We’d been discussing bringing you onto the case.” His eyes met Owen’s, and the same look of concern in his eyes had been in Handlin’s yesterday.
The president was worried about bringing Owen on the op, wasn’t he?
Owen’s mouth went dry as he eyed him, his stomach twisting into a sailor’s knot.
“Will Secretary Handlin be okay?” Jess asked, speaking for the team.
“We’ll have to wait and see. And I’m sorry it took me so long to meet with you, but I’ve been held up in briefings with the Joint Chiefs since last night to strategize how to best navigate the situation at hand.” He paused for a beat and closed his eyes. “I’ve obviously decided to greenlight you for this op.” When he opened his eyes, he looked straight at Owen. “All of you.”
Relief settled hard in his stomach, and he took a breath.
The president’s mouth tightened as he loosened his tie. “Yesterday, I commissioned all of our major agencies to double-check their servers to make sure they were secure—to make sure there wasn’t a breach we were unaware of.”
“We have the best cyber defense in the world,” Jess interrupted, and Owen swiveled his gaze to her, and she rushed out, “Sir,” at the last second.
“We do. But, in light of our current situation, Secretary Handlin and I had concerns someone may have hacked our systems and obtained the records of our missing men. We thought it was impossible, but we wanted to be sure.”
Oh, God. Was the photo Sam received from the government? Was it possible? Had someone hacked their servers and was now using their own intel against them as blackmail?
“My hunch is that JSOC was hit, but we can’t share the details of the operation that are of concern with federal agents, which I believe Handlin already mentioned to you.”
JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, was responsible for some of the most classified SEAL operations. But Owen had been under the assumption the government didn’t even maintain records of certain missions to avoid such a breach of intel.
“I thought we didn’t house entire operational JSOC missions within one server to safeguard the mission and the operatives?” Jess asked, her thoughts in line with Owen’s.
“Right. H
ighly classified operations are broken into multiple documents and scattered over various servers, as you said, and they’re heavily encrypted.”
“If it was a hacker, there’s only one guy in the world I know capable of pulling something like this off,” Jess, their cyber expert, blurted.
“Lin Yan Cheng,” Luke finished for her, then looked over his shoulder at Owen on his left, and he could tell Luke was thinking the same thing as him.
The picture of his brother from Ukraine . . . it was legit. It had to be.
Owen would follow Luke’s lead, though, on the news—and wait for him to share what they’d learned since Sam came into his life like a bulldozer.
The president rose, and his palms flattened onto his desk. “I’ve been in talks with the Chinese all day. But, without evidence to prove he’s our guy, especially since I can’t even verify a breach, we’re not making much progress with them. And I can’t exactly send a team into Beijing to try and question him, either.”
“Wasn’t it Cheng who hacked Russia two months ago?” Well, Owen’s source in Moscow told him, at least. Of course, the Russians denied the breach.
“And Israeli Intelligence, back in May?” Liam asked.
“Which is why we’re thinking there’s a connection to him and our missing men,” the president answered. “But we doubt he’s responsible for taking them.”
Jess broke their line of formation and edged to the center of the group, turning to the side to both face the team, while also maintaining a visual on the president. “He’s notorious for getting onto government servers, downloading whatever intel he can get, and all within the span of thirty seconds. He gets in and out quickly to avoid setting off alarms.”
“So he doesn’t go in with a specific objective?” Knox asked, and Jess glanced his way.
Her fingers slipped to her chest, and she rubbed the silver metal chain between her fingers as if channeling her thoughts. “No, it would take too long for him to search out specific intel.”
“His MO seems to be grab and go, and then parcel off whatever he finds to the highest bidder later,” Luke explained.
“This is just one avenue we’ve been pursuing,” the president said. “We have to explore every possibility to determine who may have our people, and why they have them.”
“Pick any terrorist. Who wouldn’t want two SEAL operatives and a CIA officer?” Asher grumbled, his voice a half a dozen octaves lower than normal.
“Well, we might have the evidence you need to prove JSOC was hacked.” Jess went over to where she’d set her computer bag by the couch at the center of the room.
“What are you talking about?” The president circled his desk to stand closer to the guys.
When Jess returned, she handed him the photo from the deliveryman. “A lot has happened since we met with Handlin yesterday, which is why we were trying to get ahold of him so desperately last night and today.”
The president remained quiet, but Owen could hear the fucks going on in the president’s head, flapping around, even if he didn’t say them.
“Is this image from JSOC, Mr. President?” she asked.
“Where’d you get this?” The muscles in his jaw clenched tight, and he lifted his eyes to look at Jess.
Jess peered over her shoulder at Owen, giving him the go-ahead to tell POTUS what he knew.
“Sir, if I may?” Owen stepped forward to confront the commander in chief.
The president’s eyes narrowed Owen’s way, and he tipped his head granting permission.
“Someone dropped this picture off at Samantha McCarthy’s office last Wednesday. She’s Brad Thompson’s fiancée, and her father—”
“I’m well aware of who she is,” he said, his voice borderline raspy. “Go on.”
Owen cleared his throat. “Someone’s trying to blackmail Samantha to get her off a proposal she’s working on.”
“Ukrainian-Russian relations.” The president’s forehead creased, irritation slipping to the surface beneath his normally composed mask.
“We believe whoever sent that image is the same person who phoned her this morning demanding she drop her proposal,” Owen explained. “Based on that photo, is it safe to assume everything is connected to our missing guys, and that JSOC was hacked?”
“This image isn’t from our files,” the president said, drawing collective breaths of surprise from the team.
Owen’s brows slanted inward. “So, the photo’s not real, sir?”
“Oh, I’m afraid it is, but it’s not ours.” He turned and set the image on the desk before re-facing the team and locked his arms tight across his chest. “I guess this would be a good time to tell you what the hell is going on.” He surveyed the team, then his focus stopped and remained on Owen. “Every time a new president takes over, we’re briefed on critical and highly classified operations that have previously taken place. Particularly, ops that could impact future relations with other nations. And, unfortunately, based on this photo”—he took a moment to swallow, as if the news was too unsettling to share—“I believe we have confirmation the mission relating to your brother’s death is, in fact, connected to our missing guys.”
The truth. Was he going to hear the truth about what happened to his brother from the commander in chief himself?
The thumping of his heart slowed, and everything damn near went calm inside of him so he could focus on what the president was about to say.
The president’s face hardened. “Ten years ago, the CIA intercepted intel suggesting a Ukrainian militia group, led by Pavlo Teteruk, was planning some sort of attack against Russia. We couldn’t risk tensions heightening, nor could we mobilize troops. It could risk tipping off the Russians.” He shook his head. “So, four Tier One operatives, who were fluent in Ukrainian, were chosen to escort Canton into Kiev. The goal was to confirm the intel to decide on the best course of action.”
Owen staggered back a step, his mind now reeling.
“While in Kiev,” the president continued, “our people discovered Pavlo Teteruk was also responsible for the kidnapping of a Russian nuclear scientist who’d recently gone missing. Our former president relied heavily on the advice of his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mike Douglas, and the general proposed the recon mission turn into a rescue op.”
“What happened?” Owen’s body grew even tenser at the news.
He pinched the bridge of his nose as if gathering his thoughts. “The team entered Pavlo Teteruk’s compound, and our men nearly got away with the scientist. But, outside the gates, a sniper spotted them and opened fired. Shaw, Robins, and Canton surrendered, and President Jones had to negotiate a deal to get them out alive and to keep everything under wraps.”
The blood rushed to Owen’s face. His brother should never have been there that day. It’d been a bad fucking call. “What kind of deal?” Owen couldn’t stop the question from rolling off his tongue.
“Arms, funding, a show of support for continued independence from Russia,” the president answered in a low voice.
“And they accepted?” Owen couldn’t square up everything in his mind.
The president nodded. “The president had General Douglas’s attorney coordinate the deal and ensure the money funneled to Teteruk was kept off the books.”
“How could we make a goddamn deal with the man who killed Brad and Jason?” He needed to stand down. This was the president, and it hadn’t been his call ten years ago, but how the hell had that happened?
“We don’t negotiate, not normally,” the president answered. “But, if we didn’t, they’d have killed three more of our men, not to mention the blowback from Russia when they learned what happened over there. The Russians would’ve used this event to try and justify an invasion. President Jones weighed the risks, and chose to make a deal with Teteruk instead.”
Owen turned his back, worried he’d lose his temper and break something in the Oval.
Black dots appeared before his eyes as rage filled him.
“What about the scientist?” Jess asked. “Even if our people survived, what would the U.S. have done with the Russian? They wouldn’t be able to let her go home, right?”
The president simply shook his head, as if pained by it all, even though it hadn’t been his call back then.
Owen took a labored breath. “And how exactly did we cover all of this up?” He faced the room again. Who the hell transported his brother’s and Brad’s bodies to Iraq . . . to have them blown the fuck up?
“Shaw, Robins, and Canton relocated York, Thompson, and the scientist to an old al-Qaeda stronghold. According to President Jones’s records, Shaw and Robins faked an explosion in Ramadi and blamed al-Qaeda. The Russian authorities were then alerted our men died trying to rescue her when they’d discovered she was being held captive.”
Lies. So many damn lies.
No one wanted war with Russia, not even another Cold War, but still . . .
“That’s why Shaw retired, isn’t it?” Owen came to the realization. “He couldn’t handle what went down.” Robins had come to the funeral, but Shaw—he couldn’t look Owen in the eyes knowing what happened to Jason.
The president didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to. Owen knew the truth. The hard fucking truth.
“This will be a shit storm if Russia finds out.” Asher’s deep voice throttled the sudden silence in the room.
“What made our government think Pavlo Teteruk wouldn’t tell the Russians what had happened that day, anyway?” Luke asked.
The president dropped his focus to the rug beneath his polished shoes. “I’m pretty sure Teteruk didn’t want Russia to launch a full-scale attack. And, the way I see it, I think he had all of this planned from the get-go. He knew the U.S. would come.” He retrieved the photo from his desk and pointed at it. “He knew NATO would reject the Ukrainian bid for entry in 2008, and so he wanted to ensure the U.S. backed the country one way or another. He had people watching our men the second their boots touched the ground. I think he let them into the compound, just to take half of them out on their way out.”
Stealth Ops Series Box Set Page 34