Fatal Honor: Shadow Force International (14 page)

He touched her elbow, slipped his hand down to entwine his fingers with hers. “It’s better if I talk to her alone first.” His intense gaze bore into hers, that charged silence falling between them again. He squeezed her fingers. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

He didn’t say it, but there was a promise there. In his eyes, in his voice. He was coming back for more. He still had questions, doubts. He still wanted to get her naked. The two desires warred with each other, but he wasn’t afraid of waging that war. He was going into battle with her.

Charlotte just hoped she didn’t let him down.

B
EATRICE
H
AD
C
ALLED
his cell phone eight times. She’d stopped leaving messages after the third call.

Miles punched in a new destination for the flight log, put on his headset, then called her back on the SFI secure communication line.

Her greeting was less than genial. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

There was a pause. “Where are you? Why is the plane’s GPS disabled?”

He checked his dials and readouts. “I’m twelve clicks south of Newfoundland over the Atlantic, no thanks to you. I disabled the GPS because I don’t want you to know where we’re going.”

Another slight pause. He could see her shifting back in her seat, her pregnant belly jutting out in front of her. She was married to Cal Reese, who led Shadow Force Alpha Team, and they were expecting their first child in a month. “Explain.”

“What’s to explain? You betrayed us at the airport. I’m not letting that happen again.”

“I betrayed you? How?”

“MI6 showed up. I’m sure that was no coincidence.”

“The manager of the hangar called and told me. He and everyone else who deals with us were questioned quite extensively after your daring getaway. You think
I
called SSI?”

“Who else knew Charlotte’s real identity and that we would be at the Van Nuys airport at that time?”

“The safety of SFI employees is always my number one priority, so while I’ll admit to having serious misgivings about this assignment because it’s clear you have feelings for this woman, and I guarantee, that will be an issue down the line—she is certainly not the first hot client we’ve had, nor would I ever betray one of my own men.”

A “hot” client for the security service was anyone too hot to handle for law enforcement. Those with special security needs or unique situations, such as Savanna Bunkett who’d had the president of the United States stalking her a few months prior.

“Sorry, Beatrice. I’m not buying it. While Colt and the others knew I was hustling Charlotte out of the country, none of them know who she is or that MI6 is after her. You and I are the only ones with that tidbit of info.”

“She must have a tracking device on her person.”

“Nice try. Already removed one at the house. Nicolae Bourean inserted that puppy, not MI6.”

Interference crackled over the comm line. “You’re confident that was the only one?”

“Positive.”

“So unless MI6 has advanced technology we don’t know about, she’s clean.”

“Yes, and if they had an advanced tracking device on her, they’d have caught up to her long before the safe house.”

“I haven’t been able to verify the identities of the men at the airport. You’re positive they’re MI6?”

“Yep. One of them is an operative named Andy Hardy. He was in the Carpathians with me last winter.”

“I don’t get it.” No one ever heard those words from Beatrice’s mouth. “I’m at a loss.”

Jax appeared in the cockpit, nodded at him and took the co-pilot’s seat. “You and me, both,” Miles said to Beatrice, “but you can understand why I suspected your involvement.”

Beatrice’s superior intellect made her good at her job. She never let emotions guide her thinking; facts and logic defined her decisions and directives.

So what came out of her mouth next surprised Miles. “I don’t know your client, nor do I give a monkey’s backside about her, in all honesty,” she said. “You, however, I do care about. You’re one of my team. I would not, under any circumstances, jeopardize your future.”

He hated to admit it, but he believed her. In the time he’d been with Shadow Force and the Rock Stars, he’d seen Beatrice go to bat for every one of the men, under many different and challenging circumstances. They didn’t always play by the rules. Hell, they rarely followed rules period.

Except hers. They all respected and trusted her. For some of the men, after their past experience with the government, she was the
only
person they trusted. She’d earned it, time and time again.

“Why, boss, I do believe that pregnancy is making you soft.”

Another rarity—she chuckled. “We don’t have all the facts surrounding your client’s past missions or her work with Vauxhall. I suspect she isn’t telling us everything. Someone knew she was in the States and making contact with you. They may have been tracking you as much as they were her.”

Miles didn’t doubt that was true. “I’m working on intel gathering. Getting her to open up after what she’s been through will take time, though.”

“I’m glad your feelings for her haven’t completely short-circuited your common sense and training. I’m sending you a file, some information I dug up from some very deep sources about her. There are holes, and some of it’s not pretty, but it may help you steer this…mission…and not end up dead or in prison.”

Beatrice might not be happy with him, but she did, indeed, have his back. “Send me whatever you can on Bourean too. His business partners, his personality, the chinks in his armor. He was working with a terrorist. I have no intel on the man, but see if you can find any connections.”

“Rory is working on it. There’s a lot of intel out there on Bourean. He even has an Instagram account. Rory will comb through it all and we’ll be in touch with anything pertinent.”

He wasn’t used to saying thank you, but it seemed like those words had tumbled from his mouth an inordinate amount of times in the past few hours. “Appreciate it, but here’s the thing, I’m not turning the GPS back on. No one, with the exception of me right now, knows where this plane is headed and that’s the way I’m going to keep it. I’m going dark until we land. I’ll make contact once I’m sure it’s safe to do so.”

“I understand.”

He knew she did. That she wasn’t taking his actions personally.

“Be safe,” she added and the connection went dead.

Jax didn’t say anything for a long time, but he fidgeted with the controls, with his seat. Finally, he offered up an apology. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. You know,”—he cocked a thumb over his shoulder—“back there.”

If he didn’t need a co-pilot, he would dump Jax’s ass at the first available spot. “You didn’t interrupt anything.”

“That so? I suppose that’s your ‘intel gathering’ technique.”

Miles shot him a stony look. “You got an issue with my interrogation methods?”

“Not at all.” Jax shook his head and smiled. “Hell, I’m thinking I need to revamp mine if that shit works.”

It worked all right.

And Miles couldn’t wait to get started on some further in-depth cross-examination.

Chapter Nine

_____________________

______________________________________________________

T
HE
P
LANE
T
OUCHED
down after too many hours in the air and CB Norris roused himself from his first-class seat and made his way through the Bucharest airport terminal. His ulcer was acting up, thanks to Carstons fucking him over. The multiple gin and tonics on the plane hadn’t helped his stomach lining either, but goddamn. That girl drove a man to drink.

He was swallowing another antacid without aid of water when his cell phone buzzed. God, he hated the damn things. Fumbling to get to the phone inside his coat pocket, he finally got hold of it and wished he hadn’t when he saw the caller ID.

“Norris,” he answered.

“Where is my
posh
ratt
?” Nico’s heavy accent made his words nearly run together. “You have her, yes?”

In a manner of speaking. “She’s on her way back to Romania.”

His non-answer answer forced the stupid crime lord to think for a moment. Something he wasn’t used to doing. “In what? A coffin? You promised her delivered to me alive.”

“She’s alive. She’ll be at that old horse dealer’s place within a day or two.” The only way to get there was by all-wheel drive or on foot. The tiny cabin had long ago been abandoned. “I’ll catch up with her there. Once I have the USB, I’ll deliver the girl and you can tell me Blackwater’s whereabouts.”

“You said you would capture the bitch in America.”

“Change of plans. This is better. I didn’t have to transport her. I’ll grab her at the cabin, get the USB, and then she’s all yours.”

“Renege on this deal and I will take pleasure in cutting off your balls, old man.”

Yeah, like that was going to happen. “Trust me, I can’t let Carstons loose after I get that USB anyway. You might as well have her. You still know Blackwater’s location, right?”

“I have his daughter. He won’t leave without her. Bring me my Gypsy girl and you can have Blackwater’s. Then we are done.”

Norris couldn’t leave Carstons or Bourean alive after this. He would set it up so it looked like Bourean killed Carstons, then he would kill Nico making it look like he arrived a minute too late to save his beautiful, but pain-in-the-ass agent. Tragic, but with the video on that thumb drive Carstons had told him about and Blackwater’s location, he’d be a goddamn hero.

He’d finally have closure.
Good time to retire
.

Norris disconnected, Bourean ranting in the background.
Little prick.
Bourean was nothing but a means to an end, but the world would be much better off without him when Norris put a bullet in his brain. It was too damn bad Charlotte Carstons had to go down with him.

The only problem was going to be the SEAL, Duncan. The real hero in this scenario, it appeared he was a standup guy trying to help a woman in distress and keep her out of trouble. Poor bastard had no idea just how much trouble Carstons was.

He’d have to find a way to take out Duncan. Not a job he relished. Too many loose ends, too much cleanup work to do afterward. Somehow, he’d have to make it look like Nico’s handiwork. Orlo would come in handy for that.

With the way he’d set up Carstons to look like a traitor to her country, she was going to tarnish the good SEAL’s reputation as well. With the piece of information Norris had in his back pocket, he could manipulate the truth of their time together in that cabin to look like they were both double agents, working together to screw over America and the United Kingdom. A Bonnie and Clyde duo that he would personally put an end to.

Taking the SIM card out of the phone, Norris stomped on it, busting it into a dozen little pieces, then tossed the plastic case in a nearby garbage can. He grabbed his carryon luggage and headed for Orlo waiting for him outside.

Serbia

F
AT
C
AT’S,
A
pub and pool hall, sat in the middle of a low valley, a long, flat building with loud music and a dozen motorcycles outside in the parking lot, lit by the moon and nothing else.

“No cameras,” Megadeth said, climbing the hill to stand at Charlotte’s side. Miles stood on her other. “Sixteen men, four women, the bartender. That’s it.”

Frigid air cut through the layers of clothes Charlotte wore and made her teeth chatter. Snowflakes fell lazily, dotting the valley with white here and there.

They’d stopped in Switzerland to refuel, the hours onboard the plane eating at her. Miles had come back, like he’d promised, and insisted his boss was not to blame for MI6 showing up at the Van Nuys airport. They discussed possible other alternatives to how those men had found her, but not one of them seemed logical. Miles had disappeared into the cockpit again without touching her, kissing her.

During the flight, she’d read an entire Robert B. Parker novel, flipped through a dozen magazines showing fashion models, European architecture, and the latest NBA players, but her mind spun with scenarios about the upcoming journey to the caves. They’d finally made it to Serbia, along the Romanian border, Miles setting the plane down near an abandoned farmhouse behind an old barn. Inside the barn were two old Land Rovers and a Jeep.

Along with the motorcycles down below in the parking lot, a couple of beat up, but rugged trucks sat side by side. Neither was better than what they were driving, although both were better equipped than motorcycles for the terrain in these parts. The bikers wouldn’t let a few snowflakes stop them, though. They’d ride all winter long.

They had a vehicle, but they needed money and supplies. “Miles, go inside the bar, start a tab, and work your way into a pool game. I’ll join you and we’ll make off with enough cash to get us where we need to go. Megadeth, you’re the muscle in case something goes wrong. Stay outside and watch for trouble. When I show up, Miles, pretend you don’t know me. Follow my lead. I’ll handle the rest.”