Covert Christmas Twin

by Heather Woodhaven

  “If the online information is up-to-date, there is a station a few stops down the line that has lockers. I checked while you were still in the dressing room.”

  Her eyes lit up. “You want me to store the hard drive there?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  She worried her lip. “Not following typical undercover protocol, for one.” She leaned back in the chair. “If the Pirate doesn’t already know our typical procedures, he’ll have someone on his roster that does, right?”

  He understood her reasoning for hesitation, but they didn’t have much choice. “Perhaps, but are we going to throw out all our other options as well—gym lockers, a post-office box... We need to get that drive somewhere safe, somewhere not on your person.”

  It was as if she wasn’t listening to him. She stared ahead. “If the lab incident was entirely about killing me, the Pirate would’ve tried harder. You were on the right track earlier. I can feel it. I think he was making sure no one else would be in the lab to make their job of stealing easier, which means we need to beat them to it.” She grabbed his wrist and her eyes widened. “We need to get back to campus at the first sign of darkness.”

  Looking into her eyes proved mesmerizing, maybe because he could do so without any awkwardness. It was as if she was looking through him, her thoughts racing. “You’re back,” he said.

  She flushed and turned forward. “Maybe I needed to talk more than I realized.”

  “Or maybe you needed prayer.” He said it without thinking.

  She turned slowly this time, and when their eyes met his stomach grew hot. Joe had never worked with a partner. He’d been part of a team before, but he’d never worked one-on-one with someone where they relied on each other.

  “Maybe I did,” she said with a slow nod. She inhaled and faced forward. “Let’s skip the bus station. I have a better idea.”

  “Oh?”

  She grinned, fire in her eyes. “Let’s just say I hope you have a few more of those Visa gift cards. We’re going to need a few things...and a lot of coffee. When’s the last time you’ve been on a stakeout, Joe?”

  “Never. I didn’t train with the SSGs.” The FBI’s Special Surveillance Group was the best at stakeouts.

  “Thankfully, I did a stint with them. It’s a good thing you love to learn new things.” She stood and rang for the bus to stop. “We’ve only got a few hours before you’ll need to put what I’m about to tell you into practice.”

  EIGHT

  The darkness in the lab office felt heavy, like scarves draped around her neck, tightening as she strained her eyes. The horrible smell of charred electronic components—and who knew what else—prompted the feeling. Every fiber of her tensed muscles wanted to jump up and run out. Kendra took a deep breath. It was a mission. Simply thinking that phrase helped her compartmentalize and focus. She adjusted her jacket so she wasn’t sitting on an uncomfortable button.

  “What was that?” Joe whispered into her earpiece.

  She’d wanted to purchase the more expensive headset with a better microphone to prevent environmental interference, but Joe had opted for the cheaper set since the two-way radios were pricey. “It’s just my microphone working too well.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I saw that.”

  She stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes, knowing full well she looked childish, if he was still watching her with the night-vision goggles.

  Despite the heavy caffeine load, they’d been on the move all afternoon and into early evening. After a sleepless night, the stress was taking its toll. Now, they sat still, in the darkness. Despite the horrid smell, her body really wanted to pass out. Moving around, even if only facially, helped her stay awake.

  “Saw that, too.”

  “Good to know the goggles work so well.”

  “If they didn’t, I’d be asleep by now. Do you want a turn using them?”

  Two exhausted agents didn’t bode well for a night of stakeout. The price of the night-vision goggles meant they only had enough for one set. So Kendra chose to be stationed in the office, underneath one of the counters, so she could keep her eyes on the computer station but still be in plain sight of Joe. He hid in the middle of the lab, able to see both entrances with the night-vision goggles.

  The office door had been locked with a physical lock when they’d arrived an hour ago, as the smart card readers no longer worked, likely because the electricity to the lab had been turned off, which worked to their advantage. The lock proved easy enough to pick and she left the door propped open.

  The lab equipment in the attached rooms had been covered in thick, white tarps, but it appeared the fire and smoke had been limited to the immediate area near the fume hoods. Audrey would, no doubt, be relieved, though she probably wouldn’t appreciate the irony of their cover about the lab being remodeled coming true.

  She fought back a yawn. “We could take turns sleeping,” she said. “We have no way of knowing if we’ll have visitors at one or four in the morning. Or at all.”

  “True.”His yawn came through the earpiece. “Knock it off. Your yawns are contagious. How about you take the first shift of shut-eye? The caffeine is still working on me.”

  Kendra shrugged but didn’t reply. She did let herself close her eyes as her shoulders released a tension she didn’t realize she was carrying. Except the moment she let her head tilt back against the wall, the image of Beverly’s house filled her mind. She could see the side explode again, as she relived slamming to the floor, and her eyes flashed open.

  “That was a fast nap.”

  “Did I actually fall asleep?” Her heart raced. It was hard work to keep her mind from thinking about Beverly.

  “If you did, you only slept thirty seconds.”

  She groaned and leaned forward. The ornaments on the miniature tree perched on top of the wraparound counter jingled from the movement, as if mocking her for the mistake that blew her cover earlier. At least, she felt pretty certain her cover as Audrey was busted. “Who has this many Christmas trees, anyway?”

  She scooted over so any movements she made wouldn’t jostle the tree next time. If she needed to sneak up on someone, she didn’t want to give advance notice.

  “You can never really know everything about a person and we had very little time to brief,” Joe said, instinctively knowing her real frustration. “If it wasn’t about the tree it would’ve been something about the university they met at or the work Audrey was doing. The mission parameters were never supposed to involve someone who knew her that well.”

  Except, it was her sister. Even if she had only known Audrey for a few months, weren’t twins supposed to have an invisible bond?

  “What made you hate Christmas, anyway?” he asked. “I’m just curious.”

  “Hate is a strong word. Ambivalence is more like it. I mean I never got all crazy about it like some, you know that.”

  She couldn’t see him nod, but given the silence, she imagined he did. Joe had asked her when they were in the academy why she was the only one not moping about missing holiday traditions like some of the other cadets in training. She smiled at the memory because it had become clear he had just wanted an excuse to complain about missing his own family’s tree trimming. He also had to be one of the few men in the world who genuinely enjoyed putting up Christmas lights.

  “And,” she added, “once I started working covert ops I missed a lot of holidays, even during the probationary years.” She thought about Audrey, and the way her face beamed over the decorations, the movies, the cookies and even the clothes. “Maybe I just haven’t given myself permission to try to enjoy it as an adult.”

  “I hope you get a chance to at least try when this is over.”

  “Me, too,” Kendra said softly. Audrey and Lee planned to get married this Christmas. The idea boggled her mind, but she wanted to be happy for them. She wan
ted to tell her family and beg them to be there despite the super short notice. They would instantly know she’d been keeping the revelation of a twin from them for the past few months. You couldn’t get away with anything but 100 percent honesty in her family of cops. How could there be a family celebration, though, if the Pirate was still out there? And if they did somehow get out of this she would be forced to tell Audrey about meeting their real mother... She took a deep breath, and the darkness and whispers they shared emboldened her. “Tell me more about Beverly.”

  He didn’t answer right away and the silence frustrated her. Making the request made her feel vulnerable enough. But maybe in the dark, if she heard more, the uncomfortable insecurity that’d plagued her ever since she’d met Audrey would disappear back into the shadows, where it belonged.

  “I’m not sure what to say. I don’t feel like I really got to know the real Beverly very well.”

  “Better than I did.” The longing and disappointment in her voice came through strong enough to make her cringe. She really had a problem with controlling her tongue around Joe. He seemed to make her emotional defenses go on the fritz.

  A door creaked in the distance. They both went silent without another word. Kendra popped up into a crouch and waited. Ten seconds dragged on as she ignored her body’s protest at the uncomfortable position. Her ears strained for any more sounds. Her own soft breaths sounded loud in comparison. She took a slow inhale and held it for a few more seconds, listening.

  Perhaps she’d misinterpreted the situation. Maybe Joe had been the one to make something creak, or it was just a security guard passing by. They’d both noticed when they’d sneaked into the lab that the security cameras at the points of entrance were no longer working. Her knees started to object in the crouched position as she spent a few more minutes of silence with no light, no indicators of anything happening.

  What if Joe had fallen asleep in the quiet?

  Two small taps sounded in her earpiece.

  Kendra’s neck tingled with awareness. The sound was Joe’s prearranged signal that two people were coming. He would’ve spoken up and told her if it was just interference by now, and with his goggles, he’d have noticed she was in pounce mode.

  A beam of light moved in her peripheral vision through the glass panel above Audrey’s desk. The lab areas had sealed doors without any windows to the outside. The absence of light had prevented her eyes from seeing even the slightest of shapes until now. She squinted, trying to make out the shapes past the doorway, as well. Had they seen Joe? The store-bought night-vision goggles would be no match against a military-grade flashlight beam.

  It hit her all at once that if her eyes had adjusted, then the same would be true for whoever was about to enter the office. Especially if he carried his own flashlight. There was nowhere to hide in the small office except...

  “Stay here and keep watch.” A male voice sounded muffled and far away in her left ear, but louder and crackling in her right. So the voice was closest to Joe and his microphone then. One thud came through the earpiece. Joe’s tap on the microphone meant one person was headed her way, confirming the voice she’d heard.

  The tap also meant she only had a second before someone entered, likely with a flashlight. Kendra needed to move and couldn’t afford to make any sound. She pushed off with her left foot and slid underneath the counter space until she reached the empty spot behind the door.

  The location was no guarantee that someone wouldn’t see her, but it at least gave her a fighting chance. She didn’t see a way to surprise her opponent if she had to crawl out of a hiding place, though.

  She stayed hunched over, not allowing even her head to press up against the underside of the counter. Her hair snagged on the rough unfinished particleboard with the slightest of movements. She let her right knee hit the floor to create a gap, ignoring the way her left ankle protested at the awkward positioning.

  Footsteps approached.

  She pulled her weapon out of her holster but held it behind her back.

  The light beam swept across the floor in front of her. She held her breath and slowly pulled her weapon higher, ready to aim if she needed to. Finally, she was about to meet the Pirate and put an end to Masked once and for all.

  * * *

  Joe lifted the night-vision goggles off his eyes but kept them on his forehead. If the flashlight beam hit the lens, they’d be useless, anyway. He peeked around the edge of the workstation. One person remained at the threshold between the adjoining rooms as a lookout.

  Joe placed the goggles back on and twisted to look around the other side of the workstation, where he could see Kendra, except she was no longer there. The tall figure stopped at the doorway. Joe’s heart jumped into his throat. They were without a team, without sufficient data, and he had never planned or participated in a stakeout before. This was already going wrong on an epic level.

  If the person entering the office spotted Kendra—even if she managed to subdue him—the other person would be alerted. If the intruders did have guns, both he and Kendra were without tactical vests.

  He should’ve never let Kendra talk him into this. When he was alone and praying, he felt peace about dying whenever his time might come. But now, in the midst of danger, he wasn’t ready. He still had so much he wanted to say and do.

  Mere minutes ago, he’d wanted to share what was on his mind about Beverly, but he also knew, with such an emotional topic, that less than 10 percent of what the other person heard would be from the actual words. If he was going to help her understand what he knew about her biological mom, he needed to do it face-to-face to make sure she was really hearing the intended message.

  He faced the back wall and took a deep breath. There was no more time to examine all the options. He popped up into a squat. The man shined his light in the office, focused on the portion of the desk with the computer and files. So far nothing was heard over the two-way so the intruder had yet to see Kendra. How that was possible, Joe wasn’t sure. It was a tiny box of an office with barely enough maneuvering room for one.

  The lookout, clad in a mask, twisted and swung the flashlight beam into the vast adjoining room, which was filled with machinery. The only way Joe would be available to help Kendra was if he took out the lookout first. Joe sprinted forward, keeping his eyes on the dark shape in front of him as his target. He felt his shoes crunch on debris, but he couldn’t afford to look down. The figure began to turn, the flashlight beam twisting as well, on its way to spotting him.

  His fingers itched to pick up the gun at his back, but he refused to grab it if they were unarmed. He didn’t want to aim and point if he had no intention of actually pulling the trigger. Not again. If he pointed and a threat was in front of him, his training kicked into hypervigilant mode and he’d likely take the shot. For now, he’d focus on taking out the light source. He grabbed the top of the microscope on his left and, using the momentum of his run, tossed it in the direction of the flashlight.

  * * *

  Kendra inched forward ever so slightly. The intruder in the office appeared to have a man’s build, judging by the breadth of the shoulders. A ski mask covered the entirety of his head, but that worked in her favor, as it would muffle sounds slightly, but she would eventually need it off to see his face.

  He held something with two long handles as he made his way to the computer station. The beam glinted off the office window again to reveal a bolt cutter in his hands. He moved to cut the cables attached to the hard drive and the computer to the locks. Too bad for him, Kendra had already switched computers with one of the other stations and planted a fake hard drive in order to be sure he’d be baited fully inside the office.

  She grinned. Time to discover the Pirate’s identity. She slid her left foot diagonally out for balance and carefully twisted until she was crouched behind the man. He’d already cut free the hard drive and was working on the cable for the laptop
. She straightened slowly and aimed at his back. She resisted the impulse to spout some sort of pirate-themed banter, like “All hands on deck.” Best to keep things professional.

  A female’s cry sounded so loud in her ear that Kendra forced her focus on her gun instead of ripping out the offending earpiece. Pinging metal and crackling glass followed in her earpiece. What was going on? Was Joe hurt?

  The man looked up at the noise and caught Kendra’s reflection in the window.

  “Hands up,” she said. “We need to be properly introduced. FBI Spe—”

  He spun so fast she almost missed the bolt cutter swinging right for her side. She twisted and moved her right hand to block it, but as the metal hit her forearm she buckled and almost dropped the gun. He dropped the bolt cutter as he lifted his foot and his kick aimed for her solar plexus.

  Kendra dropped to her knees, barely able to see straight as her arm throbbed, radiating pain all the way up to her spine. His leg grazed the top of her head with another kick. “I said freeze,” she shouted with gritted teeth. She used her left arm and punched the side of his other thigh with as much force as she could muster.

  He grunted and grabbed the laptop, thrusting it forcefully at her face. She leaned back, slamming into the open door, and momentarily felt trapped. She realized her tactical mistake instantly as he twisted the laptop and slammed it into the side of her head. She heard herself scream, without intending to, as she dropped to the ground and covered her head.

  The pain blinded her...or maybe it was the lack of light. The flashlight beam had gone dark, but she felt the man jump over her and into the lab.

  “Watch out,” she called out for Joe’s benefit, forgetting that she was probably shouting into his earpiece. She forced herself to standing before running after the man.

  She tried to catch up as he darted into the adjoining room. A discarded flashlight rested on the ground, illuminating a covered piece of machinery the size of a commercial grill. It reflected enough for her eyes to adjust. Joe held someone’s hands behind their back with one hand and had placed his gun between their shoulder blades, though his finger was nowhere near the trigger. The man was running his way, the laptop in one hand and held high as if he planned to use it as a weapon again.