Marked (Hostage Rescue Team Series) (14 page)

“I just meant that I’m fine here on my own, or back at the hotel. You guys don’t have to babysit me, I can fend for myself and there are more agents posted at the hotel. I’m more or less in protective custody anyway so it’s not like I’d leave the hotel on my own.”

And that was just one of the reasons why Celida already liked her so much. Rachel didn’t bullshit and was a helluva lot more intelligent than most of the people she’d been assigned to protect over the course of her career.

“Nope. Sorry, no can do.” Besides, she was a friend of Jake’s—and if she wasn’t mistaken, Rachel meant a whole lot more to him than just an old college buddy. If the jackass would get over himself already and admit he wanted to be more than friends.

God, Celida could
so
relate. Well, except that she and Tuck weren’t exactly friends anymore.

In fact, they hadn’t seen each other much since he’d made the HRT and left investigative work for good almost two years ago. Which was a damn shame. They’d been good together. Would be freaking
awesome
in bed if he’d just get over himself already.

“We’ll both take her to eat,” Tuck said by way of compromise, keys dangling from one broad, tan hand and his sunglasses from the other. Mother of Christ, the man was mouthwatering. Maybe not classically handsome, especially with all the knocks and nicks his face had suffered over the years, but to her he was by far the hottest man on the face of the earth.

And also the most pig-headed. That should have killed some of the lust he inspired in her, but dammit, for some reason it just made her want him more. She couldn’t resist the challenge.

And that air of absolute confidence he carried combined along with that hard body and the slow “oh-the-things-I’d-do-to-you-if-I-ever-got-you-naked” smile he sometimes gave her…yeah, she’d given up trying to get over him a long time ago. Even with all his goddamn irritating-as-shit mixed signals that even the FBI’s best cryptologist wouldn’t be able to decipher.

Pushing all those distracting thoughts away, she focused on Tuck, determined not to let him see how much he affected her. He got a kick out of flirting with her, teasing her with the promise of all she couldn’t have and wasn’t interested in moving out of the friend-zone.

Fine. She hadn’t spent this much time in the testosterone-laced environment of the Marine Corps and then the FBI not to recognize that giving a man like him that much power would be epically stupid. Something she’d learned early on in life. She could absolutely do dinner with him and Rachel and pretend she felt nothing. See how he liked that.

“Fine. But one of us will need to stay back at the hotel with her after until—” She broke off when Travers suddenly appeared in the doorway next to Tuck, the top of the agent’s slightly graying head barely reaching Tuck’s nose.

“Am I interrupting anything important?” Travers asked, glancing between them.

“No,” Celida answered, more forcefully than she’d intended. “We were just going to take Rachel out to grab a bite to eat. She’s been very helpful with the investigation so far. We don’t want her fading away on us.”

Travers turned his attention to Rachel, who’d risen and was standing uncertainly on the other side of the table. “Before you go, I need you to give us a sample.” He raised a hand to reveal the test tube and the cotton swab contained inside it.

Rachel frowned and reached for it as he walked to the table and held it out to her. “DNA sample?”

“It’s standard procedure,” Travers lied, causing her to share a silent look with Tuck. They both knew something must have happened to warrant asking for the sample, but Celida wasn’t about to say it in front of Rachel even if the woman had probably already figured it out. “Just rub that on the inside of your cheek for a few seconds and put it back in the tube.”

Rachel took it and turned away to collect the sample, all ladylike. When she turned back with a questioning look on her face, Travers gestured for her to come around the table. “Let’s drop that off to someone at the lab on our way downstairs.”

He waited until she was out the door before shutting it slightly and addressing Celida and Tuck. “Either of you know where Evers is?”

“Still at work, I assume,” Tuck answered.

Travers focused on him. “Get him here ASAP. Just in case.”

“Just in case what?” Celida asked, already thinking the worst. But if they’d found a body, why not tell them? If new evidence about Rachel’s brother had come in, she was entitled to know, and she wanted to be prepared so she could break it to Rachel gently. Travers had about as much tact as a sledgehammer.

Travers shook his head. “Don’t know for sure yet. Just get him here,” he repeated, and walked out of the room to follow after Rachel.

****

Poised in a single file line outside the concrete building, Jake’s team waited in absolute silence as the minutes ticked past.

Stealthy, efficiently delivered violence were the key to a successful op. The kind where everyone went home in one piece, hopefully after either acquiring or neutralizing the target.

The solid hand on Jake’s left shoulder tightened a moment before the command came through the team’s earpieces. The helmet-mounted night vision goggles revealed a landscape of almost neon green in what would otherwise be pitch blackness.

“Execute.”

At the signal the team’s breacher, two men ahead of him in line, rammed the locking mechanism on the steel door and blew it wide open. Their point man threw in a flashbang before the door had even hit the wall. A second later a loud bang and a blinding flash of light lit up the darkened room as the team surged forward as one unit.

“FBI! Everybody down!”

Jake raised his MP5 that they used for close quarter battle and put the stock to his shoulder. Moving in a choreographed rush that only came from countless hours of training together, the team entered the building.

Immediately Jake focused on the people in the room. Four tangos—two on the floor holding automatic weapons, one by the back door looking like he was going to make a run for it, and the last holding a male hostage with a pistol to his head. They’d already known how many hostage takers would be in here from the intel briefing. Now it was just a matter of clearing the room and getting the hostage out safely.

In the lead, Bauer took out the guy by the back door with a double tap to his center mass. The man behind him took one of the tangos on the floor while Jake and another teammate fired at the man holding the hostage. Two rounds hit him in the head. Two more shots rang out almost simultaneously, signaling the end of the last man on the floor.

It was all over in less than ten seconds.

Jake and another teammate swept the room as one ran to the hostage and the others stood guard. He moved to the dead tango by the back door and kicked the rifle from his hands. There were no tripwires, no booby traps that Jake could see. No wires on the windowsills, walls, floor or the back door.

Turning his back to the door, he hurried over to where his teammate had verified that the other hostage takers were dead. “Clear,” Jake called out.

“Clear,” his teammate confirmed.

Bauer covered the distance to the hostage in two long strides and hunkered down beside the team medic. “What’s his status?”

“Conscious and alert. Minor injuries. We’re good to go.”

Without another word Bauer slung his rifle and hoisted the hostage over one broad shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Jake took up position behind him and watched the back door carefully in case other tangos they didn’t know about might be waiting outside. The team exited the building and ran to the mobile command post.

Agent DeLuca, a former HRT member now in his mid-forties, pushed a button on his phone and spoke. “One minute forty-two seconds from time of entry. You ladies are getting’ slow in your old age.”

“Slow my ass,” Bauer grumbled, dumping the 150 pound dummy off his shoulder so it hit the ground with a thud.

“Shoulda been in and out of there in a minute and a half, tops,” DeLuca continued as though Bauer hadn’t spoken.

Jake and the rest of the guys took the criticism in stride. DeLuca knew his shit and only wanted the best for and from them. The op had been a total success: no one on the team had been injured, the hostage was safe—well, kinda, since “he” was currently laying in a tangled heap on the asphalt of the warehouse parking lot here at Quantico—and all four tangos were dead.

DeLuca stood and stretched his arms over his graying head, giving them all a smile. “All right, you bastards, you’re done for the day. Do your debriefing, then hit the showers and get outta here. I’ve gotta home-cooked Italian feast to go home to tonight.”

They’d made note of things the team needed to improve upon next time, taking nearly an hour to wrap everything up. After showering and changing into fresh clothes, Jake pulled out his phone to check for messages, already looking forward to seeing Rachel again. There were four texts, two from Agent Morales and two from Tuck. It was the second one of Tuck’s that sent a ribbon of unease through him.

Something’s going down. Get up here ASAP.

Frowning, he called Tuck’s number. “What’s up?” he asked when his roommate answered.

“They took a DNA swab from Rachel earlier, told her it was just procedure. Travers wouldn’t tell Morales and me what was going on but he’s asked Rachel to stay here and I think he’s waiting for you to show up before he spills it.”

Oh, shit, that couldn’t be good. “Any word on her brother?”

“No, but I’m betting they’ve got new evidence and Travers is just waiting for the DNA test to confirm.”

Christ, he didn’t want to think about her having to identify Brandon’s body later if that’s why they’d taken the sample from her. “I’m leaving now. Tell her I’m on my way.”

“No offense, but that’s just gonna worry her more. I’m not gonna even tell her I talked to you but I’ll stay with her until you get here.”

Jake knew his buddy had somewhere else important he needed to be right now, so he appreciated the gesture even more. “Okay. Thanks, man.”

“Forget it. I’ll just add it to—”

“To my tab,” Jake finished, already planning to make it up to Tuck by switching a shift so he could have a day off as soon as possible to see his dad. “Yeah, you do that. See you in a few.” He jumped in his truck and drove as fast as he could through the remainder of rush hour traffic to the Baltimore field office. Morales was waiting for him at the front door with an uncharacteristic worried look on her face.

“She knew something bad had happened,” she said as he fell in step with her through the lobby to the elevator, her quick strides conveying her urgency. “She insisted Travers tell her what was going on and wouldn’t take no for an answer when Tuck and I tried to stop her, so he just took her down to the lab a few minutes ago.”

“Ah, hell.” And dammit, he wished Travers had sent her back to the hotel in the meantime rather than make her sit here all night, confirming her suspicion that something was wrong. “Is her brother dead?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t heard that they located him yet, so it can’t be that.”

Then what the hell did they need to match DNA samples to? When the elevator doors opened Jake hurried down the hall to the lab. Tuck was waiting outside the glass door and headed over when he saw them.

“Sorry, man, I couldn’t change her mind about coming down here.”

Jake’s jaw clenched, concerned only for Rachel and what she was being told right now. “Did you tell Travers I was on my way?”

“Yeah, and I gave him your ETA, too, but when we tried to stall Rachel she wasn’t having any of that. She’s no dummy, man.”

No, not even close.

Jake didn’t respond, just headed for the door that would let him into the lab. A flash of movement in the window caught his attention and he slowed when he saw Rachel standing next to an exam table, in profile to him as Travers spoke to her. Inside the room, a door at the back opened and a lab tech wearing a white lab coat came out carrying a plastic evidence bag.

Jake stopped as Travers barked something at the man. He couldn’t hear what was said but his brows lowered menacingly and the tech quickly jerked the bag behind his back as he scrambled back to the door he’d just come out of.

Too late.

Rachel’s hands flew to her mouth and she reeled back a step, her entire face draining of color. Even through the thick glass he heard her cry of horror and it sliced at his insides.

“Fuck,” Jake snarled, and lunged for the door handle. He wrenched it open, ignoring Travers and the lab tech. Rachel’s head swung around and her gaze locked on him, her eyes liquid with unshed tears.

She dropped her hands from her mouth and her face crumpled. “Jake,” she choked out, immediately turning and lunging for him.

He caught her and held her to his chest, locking his arms around her back. She was fucking
shaking
, every muscle vibrating with a tension so great he expected her to snap.

What the fuck? He met Travers’s angry gaze, didn’t understand what the hell was going on until he looked down at the evidence bag the lab tech held…

And saw the human finger inside it.

Rachel buried her face in Jake’s chest and squeezed her eyes shut, her whole body shuddering in revulsion. His arms were tight around her, one hand sliding up to cup the back of her head as he turned slightly, like he was trying to either shield her or block her view.

It was too late to shield her, and she never wanted to see that hideous sight again anyway.

The image of the severed finger was permanently seared into her brain. Knowing it was Brandon’s was…

She sucked in a breath, swallowed repeatedly as her stomach rolled and her mouth flooded with saliva. God, she couldn’t even think of what her brother had been forced to endure without wanting to puke.

This was her fault. She’d agreed to do the drop with the altered plans, and this was Xang’s payback. Mutilating her innocent brother to send a clear message to them all.