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Authors: Joan Swan

Blaze (34 page)

BOOK: Blaze
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“What can Mateo tell us about him?” Keira asked.
“Q is his father's friend.” Panos and Mateo exchanged dialogue. “Q has always been there, since his father has been there. Sometimes he goes away and his father is very lonely.”
“Is Q a prisoner or a guard?” Keira asked.
“A prisoner,” Panos said.
“How many do they have?” Kai raged. “Mitch, what do you have on this place? Let's start planning the breach. I've got enough equipment and ammo in the plane to blow Norway into the Indian Ocean.”
“Consulting, my ass.” Seth crossed his arms. “Who the hell are you working for, Kai? A Colombian cartel?”
“The arms are mine. Call me a collector.”
“Your boss know you're transporting guns and ammo in his jet?”
“Get off my ass. You won't be so judgmental when you've got Kevlar covering your chest.”
“Guys,” Alyssa murmured. “Be quiet. Let her work.”
Panos and Mateo maintained a discussion separate from Kai and Seth. Panos said, “Those are the only two Mateo has seen, but the Castle is very big. He only sees the area where his father lives and the lab where he works.”
Keira tuned into the voices again.
I want you to come with me,
Cash said.
I'll come back after I blow the holding cell.
I'm telling you, I can't make that run. I'll just bring you down. Now listen. Timing is everything. When you break tonight, you have to do it at the hour mark so you hit the change of the guard.
I got it.
Cash again.
Come on, Q. I'll carry you if I have to. I can't just leave you in this hellhole.
“They're planning an escape.” Keira lifted her shaking hand from the map. “Tonight.”
“Yeah?” Mitch looked up from his paperwork. “Good. 'Cause without help from the inside, this motherfucker would be nearly impossible to penetrate. Teague, grab me a pen. Keira, tell me everything you hear. Those two don't know it yet, but they're going to help us plot their rescue.”
 
Jocelyn strode down the cement corridor, ceilings soaring above her like one of those cavernous museums Jason had dragged her to on their last trip to Rome.
“This is such bullshit,” she muttered out loud only because she knew it would be drowned by the
clomp-clomp-clomp
of the boots worn by the five guards accompanying her to Cash's cell. “Why can't we control one damn man or one damn team of firefighters when we can annihilate entire Islamic paramilitary regimes?”
They turned another corner, faced another long, gray corridor. She was so damn over all this bullshit. She wanted all of them dead and gone.
The lead guard, Domino, paused at the cell door, wrapped one hand around the dull silver rungs of the window at eye level, beyond which everything was black, and pulled a key from his noisy key ring with the other.
“O'Shay,” he called. “You've got company.”
A tired groan sounded from the dark depths of the cell. “It's about time.”
The click of the lock and scrape of metal bounced off the walls, echoed into the heights. A shiver vibrated over Jocelyn's shoulders. She clenched her fists and entered the cell. With a flick of the wall switch, the five-star-hotel-worthy accommodations were flooded with fluorescence.
“Does it take all military ops this long to get their act together?” Cash rolled to a sitting position, covering his eyes with his hand. He wore a pair of khaki pants and a white button-down, even still had on his canvas cross-trainers. “Our country must be in a shit storm of trouble since I was last out there.”
“Sleeping in your clothes is becoming a habit, I see.” Jocelyn had no patience left to dance around this man. The
clip-clip-clip
of her heels was silenced as she traversed the thick, vibrant area rug in the sleeping area. She paused only feet away.
“I'm ready to go.” When he uncovered his eyes, he tilted his head up, a strange expression on his face. “Been ready to go. Of course I'm dressed.”
What was she missing? “And where would you be going, Cash?”
“Uh, somewhere the fuck out of here.” He pushed to his feet, broadened his shoulders, creating a formidable front. “We had a deal. I create your material, you give me a new life. My son, my sister, included.” His face hardened, teeth clenched as he pointed a rigid finger in her face. “If you are fucking with me, so help me God—”
“There is no material, because a key part of the lab report is missing. That's why I'm here. I want it back.”
“What part?”
“The Method pages. You know damn well we can't do anything without those.”
“Which is why I turned them in with the rest of my report. Have you talked to Abrute? I gave my report mere hours ago. Intact. If anything is missing, that's your problem. I held up my end of the bargain.”
“Unfortunately, it
is
your problem. Because if those Method pages don't materialize, you'll have to repeat the experiment and rewrite the report.”
“That will take weeks.” He advanced, his eyes wide with an edge of insanity she'd seen on the battlefield. The guards stepped in and gripped both his arms, holding him back. “You fucking bitch. I knew you were full of shit. You never planned on coming through. Never planned on letting me out.”
“Yes, Cash, I did. I still do. But I have to have a full report before that happens. So if you have that Method section in here somewhere, why don't you just tell me now and we can be done.”
“I told you where it is. If it's missing, you should be tracking down Abrute. He's probably out selling it to the Iraqis right now.”
“We have soldiers on their way to his house. In the meantime, I guess we'll have to do this the hard way. Domino,” she said to the guard behind her. “Move Mr. O'Shay to holding and search this room. Top to bottom. Take all the time you need. If I find them in here, Cash, your kid and your sister are dead.”
“And when you find Abrute is a mole, you'd better plan on doubling the money you're giving me to live on.”
As the guards dragged Cash through the cell doorway, Jocelyn called, “Oh, and Cash. The last time I was here, you took my necklace when you attacked me. I want that back. Where is it?”
He stared back with those icy blue eyes rimmed in lashes as black as his hair. “I don't know what the hell you're talking about.”
“If I find it in here, you won't get a dime to live on outside. Want to change your answer?”
“No.”
Jocelyn fumed with a complete sense of impotence.
“When you're done in here, Domino,” she said, watching for Cash's reaction, “secure Q and search his room, too. If you don't find anything there, go back to the lab and start again.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“I'll be in the command center,” she said. “Call me immediately if you find something.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Just before they dragged Cash down the hall, his expression shifted. And though his mouth didn't curl in a smile, Jocelyn couldn't shake the sense that Cash was secretly laughing.
 
Luke stood off to the side of one of the pickups that had been left for them at the private airstrip just west of the Alamo Landing Field deep in the Nevada desert near Area 51. He watched Keira shiver in the night air as Kai rummaged through a huge plastic storage container holding a couple dozen Kevlar vests. The rest of their team, consisting of Teague, Seth, and Mitch, were already wearing desert fatigues, bulletproof vests, and helmets with night vision gear attached. Each carried an M14 and had a Glock strapped to their thigh.
“I don't know if I have one small enough to fit you,” Kai grumbled.
“Find one,” Luke ordered across the dark. “Make something work, or she stays here.”
“Don't start, Ransom,” Keira said. “You haven't been my boss for years now.”
The other men chuckled. It didn't bother Luke. He was just relieved he'd gotten her to say more than two words to him. She'd been focused during the planning phase, sullen during their flight here. And while she stayed shut off from him psychically, he didn't need to read her mind to know she was as twisted as he'd ever seen her.
“Here, try this one.” Kai pulled a vest from the very bottom of the pile and slipped it over her black, long-sleeve shirt, cinching the flank straps. “Yeah. That'll work.”
Luke would be the judge of that. Keira slid her arms into her fatigue jacket and buttoned it against the desert cold. Plunked her helmet on, fastened and tugged the tab beneath her chin, and picked up her subgun. When she wandered over to the group, Mitch handed her a Bluetooth, which she positioned in her right ear, one that would patch them into the phone call with Alyssa shortly.
While the group studied the Castle floor plan, Luke pulled Keira aside under the pretext of checking her vest.
“Luke, it's fine.”
“You whine as well as Kat.” He tugged on the right strap, then the left.
“Don't. I can't breathe.”
“You won't be able to breathe if a bullet gets past this Kevlar, either.”
She indulged his need to fuss with the vest a moment longer.
He grabbed the curve just below her neck and held. “Talk to me.”
“Luke.” She sighed in exasperation.
“I think I've been plenty patient the last few hours.”
Irritated blue eyes lifted to his. “This isn't the time—”
“Keira.” He jerked on the vest, just enough to convey his seriousness. “You can't go into this distracted. I can't go into this worrying about what you're holding back. What happened in that head of yours between the time you left my bed and the time we got to Teague and Alyssa's house?”
Her gaze darted into the darkness over his shoulder. She huffed, shifted her stance, looked toward the team before meeting his eyes again with an apology that sent his stomach dropping toward rock bottom. “I realized I couldn't . . . I can't . . .”
“Just say it. Can't what?”
“I can't . . . do this. You, me. Us. The whole family thing. I mean, part of me wants to . . . with you.
For
you. But . . .” Pain and guilt sparked in her eyes. She waved an angry hand toward the Castle compound shining in the distance. “They're everywhere. Crawling into every crevice of our lives, trying to rip it apart.
“Every family I've ever had has been taken from me,” she said. “Cash. Every foster home. The hazmat team. My life has been a pattern of failures. Time after time after time, ugliness has crept in, violence has followed, my family is crushed, and I'm left alone, more damaged than I was to begin with.”
He searched her eyes, hoping for signs of a panic attack. Then he could tell himself she didn't mean what she was saying. But her gaze was clear, sharp, determined. Fierce.
“Keira . . . honey . . .” Jesus, how did he combat what she was saying? His mind wasn't functioning with the panic welling up inside him. All he knew was that she was closing him out. “I understand what you're saying. I know this seems overwhelming now, but you're getting ahead of yourself—”
“No. I'm not.” She backed away with a look that he knew meant business. “I love you, Luke. More than anything or anyone. I've always loved you,
will
always love you. But what you haven't learned, what I've known my whole life, is that love isn't always enough. And I can't survive losing another family.” She sniffled, wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I just
can't
.”
She made the final jerk out of his grasp with tears shining on her cheeks. Luke stood frozen as she walked toward the team, swiping at the wetness.
“Come on,” she yelled as she headed into the dark, tossing her M14 over her shoulder. “Let's get this damn thing over with. And there's obviously no cover here, boys, so no dragging your asses.”
The team hesitated, their heads swinging from Keira's disappearing form to Luke. They quickly folded their maps and picked up their equipment packs.
“Too early to be sniping at us, boss—” Kai fell in behind her. “Bet your men love you when you're in a mood.”
Seth followed.
“Come on, bud. Let's go.” Teague hiked his pack higher on his back and gestured to Luke. “Give her some time. She's pretty freaked out right now.”
No. She wasn't freaked out. He knew that look of conviction in her eyes.
I just can't.
He understood the conviction too well. For Keira, living with the fear of losing the family she loved would be more painful than living the rest of her life alone.
BOOK: Blaze
2.48Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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