by N. J. Croft
“Your time is up.”
Something shot over his head, landing just behind him with a pfft. A gas grenade? Clouds of dense gray smoke billowed out, and his nostrils clogged with the distinctive acrid stench, his lungs already tightening with the need for oxygen. His eyeballs were on fire, melting from the inside out. He could barely see through the thickening air, but he could hear the booted feet heading toward them.
Time to get the hell out of there.
“You ready?” he mouthed at Rick.
Rick gave a maniacal grin.
Yup. Crazy.
As Rick stepped forward, Noah lunged to the side, raised the pistol, and crashed it down on the side of the other man’s skull. His eyes widened. Noah whirled and kicked out, and Rick crashed to the floor. He made to get up, and Noah stepped on the arm holding the pistol, heard the crack of bone.
“What the fuck?” Rick growled.
“I just saved your goddamn life. Say thank you.” He clipped him on the forehead, and he went down and out.
Noah reached down and grabbed the pistol. Tossed it out beyond the crates. “I’m unarmed and I’m coming out,” he yelled.
His skin prickled. This was a dodgy moment. There was always a chance they would shoot him anyway. Or the Brothers would take a pot shot at him from behind. But they also came out, hands in the air, coughing and choking.
As he stepped forward, men ran at him from all directions, gas masks covering their faces. Someone kicked his legs out from under him, and he swore as he crashed forward onto his face, his nose slamming into the floor with a grinding crunch. Blood flooded his mouth as his hands were yanked behind him and cuffs were snapped on. He rolled his head to the side, watching as they dragged Rick, still unconscious, from behind the crate and cuffed his hands behind his back.
Someone pulled him roughly to his feet. He stood, impassive, while another man patted him down. His mind working furiously. But he couldn’t see a way to make this work in his favor. What the hell had happened? Had someone snitched?
The place was emptying out. The other three brothers were hauled away.
He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Then someone came up behind him, and he felt the cuffs being unlocked. A man in uniform stopped in front of him. Noah recognized the face behind the mask, just as he pulled it off and grinned. Captain Tony Breyer, Noah’s second-in-command.
“Welcome back, Major. Love the leathers. Suits you.”
“Fuck off,” Noah growled.
“The general wants to see you.”
As he’d crossed the space in front of the warehouse, he’d glanced straight into Rick’s eyes. Noah had clearly not been a prisoner at that point, and he’d seen and saw the understanding dawn in the other man’s expression there. As Rick had taken a step forward, and someone had hit him from behind so he’d stumbled and fell to his knees. He’d glared at Noah as he squinted up. If looks could kill. But they couldn’t, so Noah just shrugged. Rick wasn’t important. He was out of the picture now.
Fucking great.
Three months he’d been undercover with the Brothers of Jesus. Three fucking months with a load of fucking assholes. And it looked like he’d wasted every second of that time.
The Brothers were merely a step in the chain and it was the parties on either side Noah wanted to nail. Whoever was in the military and was dealing arms, and the terrorists who would ultimately use them. Tonight was supposed to have put him on the path to discovering both.
Instead it was a waste of fucking time.
Noah had lost the ability to relax in the last three months, always sleeping with one ear open, listening for anything that might be a threat. Now he recognized a bone-deep exhaustion. He could probably sleep for a week. Once he had gotten through the debriefing and maybe found out what the hell had fucked up his mission.
He hadn’t been able to find out anything. All Tony knew was that the unit had been ordered to intercept the deal at the warehouse. Not the reason why. But that was the army for you.
Now he was heading for DC. That was where General Peter Merritt, his commanding officer—and also, incidentally, his uncle—was based. That wasn’t good. It likely meant that his cover had been irreparably compromised and he was heading for debriefing.
He’d volunteered for a position in Project Arachnid, the new anti-terrorist initiative, a year ago when it had come into being. At first, his uncle had refused to consider him. But it hardly qualified as nepotism. There weren’t that many people volunteering; it was unlikely to be an advantageous career move.
But Noah wanted to be someplace he would make a difference. And for him, terrorism was where the current war was happening. All around them. And if he could be instrumental in slowing down the spread, then he would be doing something worthwhile with his life.
Going after the bad guys.
His ex-wife, Eve, had always said he saw things as too black-and-white. But for Noah that’s the way they’d always been.
Eventually, he fell into a light doze, only waking when the car pulled up outside the Pentagon.
Tony had handed him his ID back at the warehouse, but he still got some strange looks as he walked through the building. They had given him an escort at the first checkpoint. “Sorry sir, but I don’t think you’ll get very far otherwise.”
But then there weren’t too many six-foot-four guys with shaved heads, swastika tats, and gang leathers strolling through the Pentagon. Especially at this time of night. It was around four in the morning.
“Good God,” Peter said as he opened the door and waved Noah in. “You look…”
“Like a fucking asshole,” Noah finished for him.
Peter grinned. “I was going to say—you look the part.” He studied him, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed. “And you do. More than look it. I can feel the menace oozing off you. You’re good at this.”
Noah shrugged. “It’s a matter of getting inside their heads.” He’d always been able to do that. Maybe he should have been an actor.
“And your nose is broken.” Peter waved him to a seat and took the one on the opposite side of the big desk. He reached down, opened a drawer in the desk, and pulled out a bottle of scotch and a couple of glasses. “You also look tired,” he said, pouring them both a glass then pushing one toward Noah.
He picked it up, swallowing the contents in one go, and then placed it back on the table. Peter raised an eyebrow but refilled it. Noah blew out his breath and slumped back in the chair. “I didn’t realize how tired I am until I was on my way here. I haven’t been sleeping too well.”
“I can imagine.”
He took a sip of scotch this time, holding it in his mouth and savoring the peaty flavor—a shit ton better than the cheap stuff he’d been drinking the last few months. “So what the hell went wrong? Why the raid? That wasn’t the plan. I was supposed to stay under. Follow the trail.”
Since he had started working with the unit, he’d begun seeing patterns. He’d always believed that terrorism was basically random. Perpetrated to cause chaos and terror, but with no long-term strategy involved. Now he wasn’t so sure. He had a theory that there was some sort of global plan, someone choreographing all the larger terrorist groups. But to what end, he couldn’t see.
World destabilization, perhaps. To make way for that someone to take over control, whether overtly or behind the scenes.
Once he’d seen the pattern, he’d started to predict where and when the attacks might take place. That had led him to the Brothers and he’d gone undercover, found the military connection. They were supposed to let the deal go through, and he’d follow it along the chain while his team went after the military angle, found out just how far up the corruption went. And cut it out.
“There was a leak somewhere,” Peter said. “They knew about you. The soldiers were going to reveal your identity once the product had been loaded. They would have taken you out. So we made the decision to rescue you first.”
“Thanks,” he said dryly.
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“Well, you were no further use in your present position. And I do have a slight fondness for you.”
“You wouldn’t have done the same for anyone?”
“Of course. I am sorry, though—it was three months of your life. But we do have some leads to follow. The two soldiers.”
“I’d like to question them myself, sir.”
Peter placed his empty glass on the desk. “I love it when you want something and call me sir. But it’s not going to happen. You’re dead on your feet. You’re going to take a couple of weeks leave, and then we’ll regroup and decide where to go next.”
“We have to get them, sir.”
“I know.”
“And I enjoy my job.”
Peter snorted. “Sometimes too much.”
What the hell did that mean? Though Eve used to say something similar. That he enjoyed the danger. He scrubbed a hand over his scalp. “I want to put an end to this. Terrorism is bad enough, but at least the people believe in what they’re doing. This is pure evil.” He pressed his fingers into the back of his neck, trying to ease the pressure. “Someone out there is taking advantage of the fact that there are people born into societies that consider terror a viable option for changing the world. Now they’re being used and manipulated for a purpose they know nothing about,and certainly don’t believe in.”
“You don’t consider people to have free choice?” Peter asked. It was an argument they’d had many times.
“If they even know what their choices are. But very few people actually do. Most terrorists are products of their upbringings, unable to break free of the chains wrapped around them from the moment they’re born, and that tighten every second they spend in their environments.”
“For a small minority, perhaps. But most of us can choose the paths we take.” He smiled. “Maybe you don’t believe that because you’re a product of an upbringing you can’t let go.” He studied Noah for a moment. “When was the last time you spoke to your mother?”
Noah frowned. “What the hell has my mother got to do with global terrorism?” Probably more than she knew. He smiled at the thought. “It’s been a while. But we’re not talking about me.”
“You don’t believe you’re a product of your upbringing? It didn’t affect you at all?”
“Fuck off.”
“I hope you’re speaking to your uncle and not your superior officer.”
“Of course.”
“She phoned a few times while you were away. I said you’d call back as soon as you were able, but you were out of the office right now.”
“Was she sober?”
“I think so. You know, you have to forgive her one day.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Hah. Anyway, call her and get her off my back.”
He’d think about it. “Anything else?”
“Eve called a couple of nights ago. She was trying to get hold of you. She sounded a little…worried.”
“Worried? About what?” It could be one of many things.
“I’m not sure. She said she was just in need of a familiar voice. The call came from Russia somewhere.”
What the hell was Eve doing in Russia? Presumably this was something to do with her job, but as far as he was aware, she hadn’t done field work since before they had met twelve years ago. She had a very civilized job these days as a lecturer in archeology at Cambridge University. And he couldn’t blame her for wanting that, not after what she’d been through. She suffered from PTSD. And she hated flying. Or rather, she was terrified of flying. As far as he was aware, she hadn’t been on a plane since she left him five years ago and went back to the UK. So what had finally dragged her out of her comfort zone? He glanced at his watch. It would be midmorning in Europe now. He waved a hand at the phone of Peter’s desk. “Can I?”
“Go ahead.”
He punched in the number from memory. The call went through, but he just got a weird beeping. He tried again but got the same thing. He sat back and thought for a moment. Then put in the number for Eve’s parents. The kids would have been staying there if Eve was away.
It picked up after a few rings. “Stacey?”
“Noah.” He heard a sob on the other side of the line. What the hell was going on? “Stacey, what’s happening?”
“It’s Eve. She’s dead.”
…
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to everyone at Sideways Books for making this happen, especially my fantastic editor, Liz Pelletier, for all her help and support.
About the Author
After a number of years wandering the world in search of adventure, N.J. Croft finally settled on a farm in the mountains and now lives off-grid, growing almonds, drinking cold beer, taking in stray dogs, and writing stories where the stakes are huge and absolutely anything can happen.