AMIRA

by Matthew Betley

  ALSO BY MATTHEW BETLEY

  Overwatch

  Oath Of Honor

  Field Of Valor

  Rules Of War

  AMIRA

  A Logan West Universe Novella

  By Matthew Betley

  For the readers who’ve kept Logan West alive

  and kept me going, this one’s for you.

  Prologue

  Smack!

  Amira Cerone’s pale blue gunslinger eyes fluttered open, and her heart raced with panic as she looked around the room in confusion. Her mouth was dry, but her body re-routed her attention to the wave of nausea that rolled upwards from the pit of her stomach. She felt the room spin, and she closed her eyes to fight the dizziness. On the verge of throwing up, she inhaled deeply until the sharp edge of nausea subsided. That’s one small relief. But then her touch sense kicked into overdrive, which was when she realized her arms were bound behind her. What the hell is going on? she thought as her eyes flew open a second time to assess her situation.

  Two dark-skinned people stood before her, calmly studying her actions. A man, the one who’d struck her, stared at her, smiling in a cold way that unnerved her more than the bindings on her wrists. She estimated his height at just under six feet, but he weighed no more than one hundred and seventy pounds, and that was giving him the benefit of the doubt. His light gray suit worn over a white shirt with a deep blue tie hung from his frame, accentuating his lankiness. His face was all angles, as if carved from granite until nothing was left but gashes for his eyes, nose, and mouth. His head was shaved in a buzz-cut, the black hair cut to less than a quarter of an inch as if it were his first day at boot camp. The austere visage was completed by brown eyes that mimicked the coldness of his smile. Had she passed him on the street, she would’ve thought he was an unhappy accountant, a man who felt discontent in any profession.

  “Tell her,” the woman behind him said in an African accent. “Tell her, now.”

  Amira’s glance shifted, and she studied the woman who’d spoken, her training powering back up with every new moment of consciousness. She was at least a half foot shorter than her partner, but unlike he, the woman wore a dark suit that highlighted her amazing physique in all the right places. With thick black hair, braided and tied into a ponytail, her features were softer than the man’s, high cheekbones and full lips that invited lustful attention. But unlike the man, there was no smile. Only contempt, contempt that couldn’t be disguised through feigned politeness. Wonderful. A dynamic duo. John would love this, her mind snapped, fixing on the man who’d become the love of her life, John Quick. No time for distractions. Whatever this is, it isn’t good. Focus, stay calm, and assess your surroundings.

  Amira glanced around and realized she was in a hotel room. Taupe drapes were drawn across the windows to her left. She was bound to a sturdy chair, which had been positioned between two queen-size beds, their luxurious white comforters still folded back crisply as if the cleaning crew had departed moments ago. The entire room was decorated in shades of tan and brown, tastefully and with purpose. A flat-screen TV stood on a dresser behind the woman, and a doorway to the right of the dresser led to another room. To the right of the door was the typical bathroom area in an alcove that Amira assumed led to a bathroom behind the wall to her right. Okay. I’m in some kind of suite. But what hotel? If I can figure that out, I’ll be ahead of the game.

  “You’re in the Gaylord National Hotel in a suite on the top floor,” the man said politely, as if he were a concierge providing information to a guest who’d just arrived in the lobby.

  The Gaylord? That meant the main room had at least one balcony that overlooked the massive glass cathedral-style atrium and the multi-tiered indoor lobby that was more like a shopping village with its abundant restaurants, stores, and coffee shops.

  Amira brought her gaze back to the man, and her mind attempted to shake off the effects of whatever drug they’d used on her. This isn’t good. He doesn’t care that you know. That means he doesn’t think you’re getting out of this room, ever.

  “Who are you?” Amira asked, her speech slightly slurred.

  “It’s the effect of the Rohypnol. I’m sorry about the dosage, but we had to get it just right, enough to impair you after you left the restaurant but not kill you or knock you out for hours. It made you just vulnerable enough once you reached the parking garage. The combination of chloroform from the rag and the drug I’m sure isn’t pleasant, but it beat the alternative. Trust me,” the man said, the cold smile broader.

  “Which was?”

  “Killing you right away,” the man said with no emotion. Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts. The words from the old police show hammered other images into her head, her father, a retired DC homicide detective, dying in her arms more than ten months ago. The sudden sucker punch of grief slammed into her gut, but she fought it off as she’d been doing since the day of his murder, building her defenses a little stronger with each random emotional attack. Focus, Amira, Nick Cerone’s voice whispered inside her head. Yes, Daddy, she thought, love and anguish mixed in her mind. She shut the feelings down and breathed as each inhalation calmed her racing thoughts.

  “Sounds like I’m a lucky girl,” Amira replied, a note of resistance and sarcasm in her voice.

  The woman moved forward so quickly Amira barely had time to register it before she felt the open hand twist her head to the left from the force of the blow. She’s fast. Not as fast as you, but still quick.

  “Please,” the man said, chastising the woman. “No more. We can’t have any marks on her body.”

  The way he referred to her “body” unnerved her, as if she were already dead and on display on a medical examiner’s table. “Ms. Cerone, you can call me Samuel, and this is Nafisa, but it’s irrelevant. As I’m sure you already figured out, this will be your final resting place, at least until the police discover your body. But until that time comes, I have no plans to torture or interrogate you. Nafisa, on the other hand, if I were to leave you to her, she would carve you apart, piece by piece, I believe, taking her time with each cut.”

  Amira’s cheek throbbed, but she looked defiantly at Nafisa. “Do I know you? If so, I don’t recall, and I never forget a face. Ever.”

  Nafisa lurched forward, snarling and seething with hatred, but Samuel’s arm shot out and blocked her progress before she could reach Amira. Samuel said something sharply in his native tongue, and Nafisa turned and exited the room.

  Must have been good, whatever I did. Wait a second. What language was that?

  “Since we’re apparently all friends here already, can you answer me one simple question?”

  Samuel’s eyes raised in expectation. “Very well. Ask.”

  “What language was that? As I’m sure know, I’m half Ethiopian, and I know my African dialects, but the drug you used must be playing tricks on me, because I couldn’t identify that one.”

  Samuel nodded his head slightly, exhaling quickly as if in agreement with her. “It’s Dinka,” he responded crisply, and waited for her to process the information.

  Dinka? Amira had been to Africa on multiple missions, the most recent one nearly a year and a half ago when she’d been sent under cover as a USAID worker in Khartoum, where she’d met and partnered with Logan West, John Quick, and Cole Matthews, the three men with whom she’d later formed Task Force Ares. But before that fateful encounter, she’d been sent to southern Sudan, activated as a member of CIA’s LEGION program, a female assassin and army of one. Oh no. It can’t be.

  Her features must’ve have given her away, because Samuel smiled at her self-realization. Before he could speak, there was a light knock on the door in the main room of the suite, and Samuel abruptly turned and walked away.

  Amira’s mind raced as she s
truggled to determine what the connection was with the mission in southern Sudan, although for Nafisa, she feared she already knew. I killed someone she loved. As John would say with a corny wisecrack, this is going from bad to CATS, fast. She smiled inwardly, encouraged that the voice of her lover and fellow warrior was always with her. But bad musical movies aside, you have to focus, or you won’t get out of this one, his voice finished.

  Amira heard the door open, and a quick rush of muffled conversation reached her. Events were stacking upon one another like children’s building blocks, but she had no control over them. With no control, they’d collapse upon her and pin her beneath the weight, and she’d be left flailing against an immovable force. And when that happened, her life would end. Of that, she was certain.

  The only consolation was that her longtime friend and fellow agency employee, Elizabeth Cathy – Beth to her friends – must have safely left their lunch at the Mezeh Mediterranean Grill. She’d been friends with Beth since her early days at the Farm, where the agency trained its new case officers, among others, in the National Clandestine Service.

  Elizabeth had reached out to Amira a few months ago, having just returned from a tour as the Deputy Chief of Station in Paris, a deceptively rigorous location from the constant threat of radical Islamic terrorism omnipresent in France. She’d heard about Amira’s father and thought it would be beneficial if the two had lunch. For Amira, it was the first normal conversation she’d had with someone outside of Task Force Ares, and she’d embraced it, opening up to her friend as much as she could without compromising her position on the task force. After lunch, they’d enjoyed a delicious cup of coffee, and then she’d felt a little tired, chalking it up to the emotional release of sharing some of her grief with her friend.

  Amira snapped back to the present. The coffee. It was in the goddamned coffee. At least Beth got out, although she thought it could be possible they’d kidnapped her, too. But if they had, they would’ve told her by now. Additionally, Beth would’ve been a loose end they didn’t need. Amira was the real prize in the game whose clock had started.

  All thoughts of Beth Cathy were wiped away from the surface of her mind at the appearance of the three new arrivals. No. It can’t be.

  This time, Samuel smiled broadly, the pleasure evident in the malicious grin. “I believe you know my good friend here, Trevor Emerson, a former employee of your agency.”

  Standing before Amira was a man in his late fifties, a full head of black hair showing flecks of gray. His features were non-descript, minus the deep blue intelligent eyes with heavy lines beneath them that seemed tinged with both genuine happiness and sadness at the sight of her. He’d maintained his weight, and he looked trim and fit for a man his age. At five-foot-ten, his overall appearance allowed him to blend into almost any situation, which had served him well for thirty years as one of the agency’s most-experienced case officers and foreign asset recruiters.

  “Hello, Amira,” Trevor said politely. “I have to say, it’s been way too long, and I so wish this were under other circumstances. But this is the life we chose, and we can never run from our choices. You know that better than anyone.”

  A wave of fury, hot and white, threatened to overwhelm her. The man before her was the ultimate insider threat, a retired agency employee who’d somehow turned his back on the very nation he’d protected for decades.

  Amira’s father had been murdered at the behest of the former vice president, the highest-ranking traitor ever to exist inside the US government, even though the public hadn’t learned of his treachery, for reasons the current president and Task Force Ares had agreed would be in the interest of national security. But the righteous anger still burned, and she’d run out of patience with men like Trevor. Maintain your calm, for your sake.

  “I wish I could say the same for you,” Amira replied curtly. “I’d heard you’d become disenchanted with the agency. But this? I never thought you’d turn traitor, not after all you’d done in service of the republic.”

  “Like I said, it’s a life full of choices, and I made several small ones years ago,” Trevor replied, shrugging his shoulders slightly with utter indifference. “They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but I don’t think that’s quite the case. I think it’s paved with baby steps, small movements forward so tiny you don’t realize how dangerous they are until you’re surrounded by the warmth and flames of eternal damnation.”

  Amira scoffed at the explanation. “You take up poetry in your retirement? You fancy yourself a modern version of Dante? Don’t delude yourself. You’re no different than the traitors who’ve come before you. You might have your reasons, but it won’t end well for you, no matter what you think.”

  “Actually, I think I’m quite different. I see things through, and I never hesitate to act, as you well know from the first day we met.” The initial pleasure he’d displayed at the sight of her was gone, replaced by the reptile and survivor within, the alter ego that no one ever saw.

  Amira knew this to be true. She’d born witness to it, for Trevor Emerson was no normal agency employee. He was the man who’d recruited Amira into the CIA and a way of life she’d always known would end in only one way – ruinous violence.

  “And what exactly do you plan to see through today?”

  “Easy. The assassination of the current director of the CIA, your friend and boss, Sheldon Tooney.”

  Amira stared at him, hatred and fear mixing in one sickening combination. “You can’t be serious. You know you’ll never get away with this, right? Even you have to understand that.”

  “Oh. I do. And technically, I won’t be assassinating anyone. You will. After what you’ve been through, the loss of your father, it won’t be hard to convince the agency that you snapped and sought revenge against those you believed responsible.”

  “They’ll never believe you. Trust me when I tell you this. You have no idea what you’re starting here. If you did, you’d walk away, right now.”

  “My dear, ultimately, it’s irrelevant. I just need the window of time that the confusion and your perceived involvement will cause. My friends and I will be out of the country by the time they untangle this web I’ve weaved, with you dangling in the center, trapped in death.” His words were spoken with the confidence of a man who was convinced of his success, even before he’d achieved it.

  The gravity of the situation threatened to pull her under. She shook her head in denial, and her chin fell to her chest as she tried to manipulate her wrists. How had this come to pass, that the man who’d brought me into this business, a man I’d trusted with my life, a man whose life I’d saved, would be the one to end me?

  Part I – A New Way of Life

  Chapter 1

  The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

  University Of Maryland School Of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies

  Years Earlier

  9:37 PM

  Amira Cerone was exhausted, but like her father relentlessly – albeit supportively, she had to admit – told her, “There are no short cuts. You either put in the work, or you don’t.” As a testament to her father’s philosophy, her life as a junior at the University of Maryland in the School of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies was about anything other than shortcuts. Between a double major with a bachelor’s degree in dance and another in criminal justice – which made her father quite pleased – and the endless hours of training and practice she put in at the Clarice Center, she barely had time to breathe. Add the three times a week she trained in Chinese kung fu in College Park just off campus, and it was no surprise that her social life existed on a scale from zero to none. But she was fine with that, as it suited her quiet and calm disposition.

  There’d never been a doubt as to where she’d attend college, and once she’d been informed that she’d been selected to receive a Banner/Key Scholarship that paid for all tuition, room and board, and additional expenses, the proverbial deal had been sealed. A full scholarship to UM
D’s TDPS would’ve covered her full in-state tuition, but as a resident of Washington DC because of her father’s career as a police officer, she was considered out of state. But the Banner/Key had solved that financial dilemma in one fell swoop, and the school was thrilled to have her.

  Then again, she’d known any school would’ve been, as she was the banner – pun intended, she always told herself – student: brilliant, hard-working, talented, and beautiful in form, physique, and function. The reality was that students like Amira Cerone were rare, and the school protected and coveted her like a sparkling treasure. Had it not been for her upbringing as the daughter of an Italian detective and Ethiopian immigrant – both whose work ethics rivaled Amira’s – the attention TDSP heaped upon her might have gone to her twenty-year-old head. But she was not like other young women her age, and while she was grateful for the attention, she was also mature years beyond her current phase in life.

  She breathed deeply, her body attuned to her surroundings, her legs in full contact with the stage as she sank deeply into the front splits. The Kay Theater was the school’s premier classic theater for plays, dance performances, and ceremonies. Seating six hundred and twenty-six attendees, it currently had an occupancy of one – Amira. She loved the privilege of training alone on stage with only her focus and dedication to motivate and move her. The fact that the theater had a noiseless ventilation system only added to the experience. She was convinced that someday she’d perform on bigger stages – hopefully with a company like Bill T. Jones in NYC – and the sooner she was comfortable with all eyes on her in a setting like the Kay Theater, the better it would be for her career. She smiled to herself, engaged in an internal conversation. You’ve been comfortable on these stages since you were nine and danced at the National Mall Christmas Tree lighting. True, but you can never practice too much. It’s about the progress, not perfection.