Asher retrieved his phone, dialed up the team, and placed the call on speakerphone. “We have to alert the police,” he said once the line connected. “We need them to jam all radio frequencies and cell towers within a twenty-kilometer range of the Brandenburg Gate. I think they’re planning on setting off another bomb there.”
The man’s brown eyes narrowed, and he looked away from Asher the moment he’d finished speaking.
He was right. He could feel it.
“They may have a timer and not a remote detonator, but if—”
“The press and police are still all over the place,” Luke interrupted.
“Exactly.” He took a breath. “I think these assholes are on their way there now. Maybe under the guise of the media.” Asher held the phone in his palm as steadily as possible, trying to fight the tremble in his hand. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
“Especially if this cocksucker was just over there.” Luke shifted his attention back to the man. “What time are they planning to attack?”
Asher’s heart squeezed at the sight of the girl. Maybe she did speak English. Maybe she understood everything because . . . he was pretty sure she was signaling something to him.
His gaze fell to her hand at her side.
Her closed palm opened, and she extended her fingers to show five before retracting her hand to show another three fingers.
Eight o’clock? “We have twenty minutes,” he hissed in alarm after checking his watch.
Luke looked over at him. “I’ll get ahold of my contact. He can phone this in for us. We need someone to stay with them, though. We can’t let them tip off whoever has her.”
Asher stepped closer to him, hating the idea one of them would have to stay.
“Go,” Luke said as if reading his thoughts. “You’re better at dealing with explosives.”
Asher knew it pained him to make that call.
“We’ll meet you there,” Liam said over the line.
“Just get to her,” Luke rushed out. “Don’t let the police kill her. If she’s strapped—”
“I won’t let anything happen to her,” Asher said, his voice rough. “I promise.”
Twelve minutes later
“I don’t see her yet.” Asher checked his watch. They had eight minutes. Eight fucking minutes until Jessica could be blown up. He had to trust the girl. He didn’t have a choice.
“Any media vans look different than the others?” Liam asked over comms once he and Knox had arrived at the scene and scattered to surveil the area.
“There’s a lot of them,” Knox answered.
“Bravo One is five minutes out,” Liam announced, which meant Luke had turned the target over to his contact along with the woman and child.
“Why the hell are our comms still working?” Knox asked a minute later. “The police haven’t killed the frequencies yet.”
“They will,” Asher said. “They have to.” Of course, if there was a timer, killing the signals wouldn’t stop an attack.
“I’ve got her in my sights,” Liam’s voice came hard over the lines. “It’s Jessica, but—”
“She’s strapped,” Asher finished. He’d spotted Jessica being shoved out of the back of a van. Her mouth was covered, and the detonator was taped around her hand. She was on her side now, on the ground, struggling to stand.
“Knox, go after the van,” Asher ordered. “Don’t let the driver get away.”
“Copy that,” he responded.
Asher started toward Jessica, his heart pumping hard in his chest, trying to suffocate the fear of seeing her in trouble. “We need to get to her before the police see . . .”
But it was too late.
Screams ripped through the air. Jessica had been spotted.
“Approach on the left,” he told Liam. “We have to get to her before the police take her out by mistake.”
“I’ve lost visual,” Liam said as the press rushed his way.
“She’s on her feet now.” Asher sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes connecting with hers. Everything inside him dying at the moment.
The police set themselves up like a human barricade to the public. They pushed everyone back to the standard range from an s-vest.
Nothing was standard about this moment, though, not with Jessica there.
Commands for Asher to leave barked from behind, but he ignored them.
“They won’t shoot her and risk the bomb detonating,” Liam said. “Right?”
His throat thickened at the sight of Jessica shaking her head, and it had Asher pausing mid-step.
“The police are backing farther away from her.” Panic crept into Asher’s tone. “They’re going to take the shot.”
Jessica stood frozen in place, hands still up, but she turned her head to the side, and he followed her gaze.
“You see the cameraman alone about a hundred meters to your left?” Liam asked over the comms.
“Yeah.” Asher swallowed. Time stood still. A hard knot fisted in his stomach. “I think that’s what Jessica wants me to notice. She’s letting us know she’s a diversion.”
Chapter Eleven
Tears built in her eyes, but she refused to unleash them. She couldn’t give in to these assholes who were using her to make a statement and kill others.
Her heart worked into her throat at the sight of Asher in the crowd, and everything inside of her hurt that much more.
He wasn’t a dream. He was real. Her team had come for her.
Of course, they’d come, but would they be able to wrap their minds around the fact they might not be able to save her?
She squeezed her emotions away as best she could and slowly skirted her focus off to the left, toward a cameraman standing alone amidst the media equipment abandoned by the other outlets.
Her brows drew together as she fixed her attention back on Asher, hoping he would get the message.
The explosives on her vest were nothing compared to the unstable weapon inside that man’s backpack.
The bomber was on the move now, heading toward the crowd. Onlookers stood off in the distance behind police barricades, watching her. Waiting to see what would happen. Trying to capture the moment on their phones.
Go. Her eyes pleaded with Asher. Stop him.
The police started to edge away from her, no longer shouting angry threats in both German and English. And she knew what they were planning to do next.
A head shot. A clean kill.
They were going to risk her setting off the vest now that everyone was far enough away.
Asher stood locked in place as if he couldn’t decide what to do—a moment of indecision she had never witnessed with him before.
She tried to keep her body still, to kill the trembling, so her thumb didn’t slip and hit the detonator taped to the palm of her hand.
Even if her team killed the RFs and cell signals, it wouldn’t do any good. The bomb in the backpack was on a timer.
Samir Hadeed wanted Jessica dead, but he wouldn’t care if the vest detonated, or she was taken out by the police.
Samir. God, how could he have become this man? How had this happened? He was so young. Too young to be behind all of this.
She ignored the bubbling rise of bile at the back of her throat and dropped her lids closed. She refused to race through her thoughts—to think about everything she’d ever wanted to do but never had.
Her heart was bleeding, though. At least, it felt like there was a gaping hole, and blood was leaking into her chest cavity.
When her lids slowly lifted, she spotted one police officer with a rifle in hand, observing her through a scope. He’d be the man to take her out. But behind him . . . Luke.
He was talking to the sniper. And, oh God, he has Max with him. He’d been a German Fed before retiring and working in private security. Of course, Luke would reach out to him. But was there time to stop this?
Max moved in front of the man who was close to stealing her last breath, blocking his shot.
A small flicker of hope grew inside of her. She searched for Asher and found him off in the distance with Liam.
Liam stood alongside the German officers, and he and the Feds were motioning for the bystanders to move back.
The bomber was out of sight, but Asher had found the backpack and crouched before it. Brave like always. Made of steel on the days they needed it, and every day in between.
Her head rolled skyward, and she stared up at the bright sun kissing the sky as if everything in the world was okay, and she wasn’t standing close to where Ara had died about to follow along with her.
“Hey.” Luke’s voice had her dropping her gaze. He was approaching her. Alone.
The police were keeping a safe distance; she was almost surprised they’d let her brother approach. Almost surprised because this was Luke—and he always came through. Against all odds.
“The signals have been jammed.” Luke’s eyes were hollow, a shell. He’d probably been through hell since she’d been taken.
She shook her head, letting him know it didn’t matter.
He edged closer and peeled the tape from her mouth before eying the vest.
“It’s on a timer,” she rasped.
His fingers trailed over the stopwatch. “Forty-five seconds.” He glanced back over his shoulder, and she tracked his gaze to find Asher running toward them.
The police blocked him, but he started to shove and push against them, through them, one by one. He was going to get himself killed if he didn’t stop.
But Max intervened, and Asher charged her way.
“Let me do it!” he called out as he closed in on them.
“The other bomb?” she rushed out, finding his eyes.
“It’s diffused.” He nodded.
Thank God.
“There’s not much time.” Tears touched her cheeks. She couldn’t hold them back, not with her brother and Asher so close. “If you cut the wrong wire, you could both die. Ju-just go.”
“No. We’re not going anywhere.” Luke shook his head. “Down to twenty seconds.”
Asher’s fingertips buzzed down the center of her vest, and he carefully shifted a few wires around. He retrieved a knife from his pocket. The knife she’d given him for Christmas.
“I need you to get back,” Asher rasped to Luke, his breathing labored.
Luke didn’t budge.
Jessica looked back and forth between the two. She didn’t want to die like this, but more than that, she didn’t want anything happening to them.
She tucked her chin down to try and observe what Asher was doing. He shifted a red wire to the side to get to the blue.
“Back. The. Fuck. Up,” Asher commanded. “You’re a father!”
Luke didn’t move. Stubborn as hell.
“Please,” Jessica pleaded, her voice breaking. “Go, the both of you. I don’t know which wire—”
“If you stay,” Asher began, “I stay.” He captured her eyes as he held the blade to the blue wire. “A team, remember?” And then he cut it.
Chapter Twelve
“You shouldn’t have done that.” Jessica glanced at the IV and morphine drip off to her right before looking back at her guys. “If your faces end up on the news because of me . . .”
“We’ll worry about our asses later. Let’s focus on getting you better.” A faint line appeared on Knox’s forehead. Concern practically radiated from his pores. “You look like shit, though.” He faked a laugh as if hoping to lighten the mood.
Usually, Asher was the one cracking jokes at shit times to alleviate tension. But right now, he stood off to the side of the room, his back to the wall, a dark, grim look to his face.
She could barely breathe the moment his brown eyes landed on hers.
Her fingers swept to her collarbone, and she forced her eyes closed.
A lump gathered in her throat when she allowed the darkness to swallow her—only to see Ara’s face in her mind.
“We need to catch Samir. We need to stop whatever else he’s planning.” The deep breath she took made her chest ache. It was the kind of pain that couldn’t be dulled by morphine. She hadn’t wanted the drugs, but the doctors and her overbearing brother had insisted after seeing her bruises.
“We got the cameraman and driver. We’ll find Samir.” Luke edged closer to the bed and lightly squeezed her shoulder. “The Germans are searching everywhere for him and the assassin.”
Assassin. The word spun around in her mind, and she swallowed the hard truth Samir had hired an assassin to kill his cousin. To kill her.
“We’d be looking, too, if the Feds would let us,” Liam said.
The German Feds had already questioned them all, and she was sure there’d be several more rounds before anyone would be heading back to the States.
“We’re lucky Max came through for us,” Luke responded. “The police could’ve . . .” He dropped his words, probably not wanting to say Jessica had come close to having a bullet to the head.
“You talk to the president yet?” Jessica fisted the white blanket with her right hand and tipped her chin toward the ceiling, unable to look her team in the eyes.
She had done this. She had lied to them about Ara, and now—what if this is all my fault?
“No, but I spoke with Director Rutherford a few minutes ago,” Luke answered.
“I’m assuming he told you to back down and not come find me.” An attempted brow raise had pain darting through her skull, but she hid the groan that tried to escape.
“We stopped an attack,” Knox said before Luke could respond. “Everything will be okay.”
But would it?
“I’m so sorry about Ara,” Luke said, tucking his hands into his pockets.
She waited for a lecture to follow, a lecture she deserved, but he didn’t deliver it. Instead, he cocked his head to the side and swept his gaze across the room. She tracked his eyes to find him looking at Asher.
Still quiet.
Not a single damn word from Asher since he’d diffused the bombs.
“She’s dead because of me.” She had to fight the tears—to battle the emotions trying to break her.
“No.”
Her head rolled to the side to observe Asher who’d finally spoken.
That simple word gutted her.
“She’s gone because her cousin used her to try and gain control over a terrorist group,” Knox said when the rest of Asher’s words seemed to die on his tongue.
“What? Why?” A million other questions crashed through her mind, but she held them back.
Asher stepped away from the wall. “We don’t know why, but we do know how he found Ara.” He arched his shoulders back, and his hands disappeared into his pockets. “She visited Samir’s mom in Paris two months ago, and it looks like he had her followed back to Berlin.”
“And?” Her eyes narrowed.
“A day before she emailed you, Yasser Hadeed’s enforcer from back in the day approached her. It was his house in the city where you were taken to earlier today.” Asher appeared to take a hard swallow. Gathered a breath. “We think they threatened Ara. They probably wanted to know who had helped her get away from Aleppo. Who had helped take down Yasser six years ago.”
Me. “She wouldn’t betray me like that.”
“Would she give you up to save the girls?” Knox asked, his voice weighed down as if stones were piled atop his chest.
“You know this for a fact?” she asked, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible.
“No, but it’s a fairly safe assumption,” Knox answered.
Her eyes fell shut at the memory of her last conversation with Ara. “She said she’d made a mistake.” Her throat thickened, emotion trying to leak again.
Contain.
Contain.
She couldn’t let her team see her break down.
But . . . what if she couldn’t keep it together?
A dull throb in her chest had her gasping for a breath. “If the girls were in danger it’
s possible she gave me up, but she’d said she was being tailed and had tried to lose someone.”
“Maybe she changed her mind. I don’t know.” Luke’s words were soft. Almost delicate. Like he was afraid he’d break her.
Jessica blinked and tried to sit, but failed. The drugs were overpowering her, making her weight feel as if it’d been tripled. “The girls,” she sputtered at the realization they could be in danger. “What if Samir tries to use them again?”
“He has too much heat on him,” Luke was quick to respond. “Director Rutherford decided to take the girls into CIA custody, though. Agents are picking them up as we speak.”
“The Germans don’t know about this.” Liam’s words captured her attention.
“Why would Rutherford interject Langley into the situation?” She tried to keep her eyes open as the drugs lulled her into a foggier state.
“I have a hard time believing Rutherford grew a conscience today,” Knox said. “But we’ll find out what’s really going on.”
“At least you know the girls are safe.” Luke nodded.
“I need to be the one to tell them about Ara. They should hear it from me.”
The room went quiet for a moment. “I don’t think that’s possible. I’m sorry.” Luke shifted his eyes to the floor for a beat, giving her a minute to process everything.
She’d need a lot more than a minute, though.
She glanced at Liam standing alongside Luke now. He wrapped a hand around the nape of his neck. Discomfort. Pained by looking at her. The desperate desire for revenge in his eyes.
Her gaze fell upon Asher again.
He was looking away from her. Even beneath his beard, she could see the hard clench of his jaw.
“I never would’ve expected this of Samir.” She thought back to Syria, to when she’d first met him.
“People change,” Asher said, still not looking at her.
“You were right,” she whispered, knowing only Asher would understand the past tense meaning of her words.
And before anyone could say anything else, the door opened and an officer stepped into the room. “The captain needs a word.”
Stealth Ops Series Box Set Page 57