Marked (Hostage Rescue Team Series) (3 page)

But even if he passed her off to someone else once he heard her out, she knew without a doubt that he’d help her. Her trust in him was still rock solid, even if the last e-mail she’d sent him had effectively cut contact. For a variety of reasons, most importantly her sanity.

But this was too important. If she was right about Tim, she and her brother might be in some kind of danger.

Mind made up, she scrolled through her phone’s contact list, found Jake Evers’s information and fired off an urgent e-mail.

****

“Did you get it?” his contact asked in their language.

Xang paused outside the restaurant to peer through the window and make sure his friends were still seated at the table before answering the man on the other end of the phone. The early April evening was warm, but a cool breeze blew in off the water, making him grateful for the dark hoodie he wore. And its pockets gave him ample room to hide what he’d stolen.

“Yes. Two USB drives, and I think one contains information about the target you’re interested in. I didn’t have time to go through everything but I’m sure this has what you’re looking for.” He was incredibly relieved about that, since the deadline had been coming up fast. He didn’t dare fail his first unsupervised mission with the cell. This was finally his chance to prove his worth as something more than just a hacker, something they could find easily enough and replace him.

The cell leaders’ endgame was vastly different from his. They wanted to inflict mass casualties on American soil, cause enough panic and chaos to shine a spotlight on the plight of their people. More than that, they wanted these attacks to damage relations between China and the U.S, and ultimately one day, force the Chinese government to grant his people an independent state.

For Xang, this jihad was far more personal.

It had taken him over three years to reach this point, where he was finally in a position to avenge his brother’s and father’s deaths at the hands of the communist Chinese government. Murders, he corrected himself, fingers tightening around the phone. As strong as they were, they no doubt would have begged for mercy for an end to their suffering. And found none.

Xang would be just as merciless with the enemy.

“Excellent,” the man said. “When can you get them to me?”

“Either later tonight or tomorrow morning.”

His contact grunted. “What about the woman?”

“I’m with her brother right now. We were at her place earlier, but we left after they got into a fight. I think it was about me.”

“She suspects you?” he asked in a hard tone.

“That I took the drives, yes, but I don’t think she knows anything else.” He’d intended to copy the files onto his own thumb drive but Rachel had come home before he’d had the chance and his only option had been to take them. He hadn’t realized she’d noticed them missing until Brandon told him. He might have been worried she’d call the cops but she didn’t have his cell number and had no idea where he lived. She didn’t even know his real name.

“How can you be sure?”

Xang pondered that a moment. Though he’d only met Rachel a handful of times, he knew she didn’t like or trust him. She was a lot more insightful than her little brother when it came to people’s characters. “She doesn’t know anything about me, and neither does the brother. It’s fine.” They had no idea who he was.

“What about the brother, does he think you did it?”

“I told him I didn’t, and he seemed to believe me.” Despite the close bond Brandon and Rachel shared, there was definitely some sibling rivalry going on in the family dynamics that they could potentially capitalize on later, if need be. “She acts more like a mother to him than an older sister. He hates it. We can use that if we need to.”

“Good. I’ll expect you by noon tomorrow with the drives.”

“I’ll be there.” To get his first cash payment for the job, and to go over how the leader wanted to handle the next part of this op.

He slid his phone back into his pocket and re-entered the restaurant. His new American “friends” looked up at him as he approached the table, and Brandon smiled and scooted over to make room for him in the booth.

Xang took the seat and pretended to engage in the meaningless conversation going on around him, even smiled when required to, the whole time anticipating getting his hands on that cash tomorrow, and hopefully receiving even more brutal orders to execute as the deadline approached.

The four other men around the table continued talking and laughing, oblivious to what was taking shape around them. He loathed them all for their ignorance, for their patriotic love for a corrupt country and a regime that supported such a huge trade relationship with China and the godless government that had brutally suppressed his people and their rights for generations.

They had no clue what was coming here to the city, that the coming attack would take place at a joint Chinese and American target. Both countries were anti-Islamic that had shed innocent Muslim blood while the rest of the world looked on without doing anything. Both were populated by infidels and deserved to be destroyed. Xang was merely one of Allah’s warriors bringing the fight to the American capital.

He loved the rush of having all that secret knowledge to himself. Savored knowing the irony that these men considered him a friend, or that they thought they were being kind by allowing him to hang out with them when in reality he was using them.

Xang hid a smile as the waitress brought their food. He was Chinese by birth, no more than that, and Muslim by Allah’s grace because of his true people’s blood. Finally being able to take part in an operation to wage jihad on U.S. soil was a total rush, more addictive than anything he’d ever been involved in before. The best part about this was the Americans’ ignorance about his cell’s existence—his
people’s
very existence for that matter, let alone their plight. But the U.S. would suffer for that neglect very soon.

He hid a sneer as Brandon took a bite of his BLT, disgusted by the American and Chinese practice of eating pork. It was unclean and revolting and a sin against Allah.

And Allah always punished those who sinned against Him and the true believers.

Taking a sip of his soda, he pretended to laugh along with the others at some joke Ray made, all the while secretly reveling in their cluelessness. His time was near.

Vengeance, religion and politics aside, Xang planned to come out of this with enough money and contacts to start his own, deadlier cell, then wage jihad on his terms on both American and Chinese soil. He’d use whatever means available to him to attain that dream and avenge his father and brother—including everyone at this table—and not lose a moment’s sleep over it.

Jake thanked the waitress as he held out his coffee cup for a warm-up and flicked another glance toward the café’s front door. He’d arrived early, twenty minutes ago now, and knew Rachel would be walking in any minute. The woman had always been a stickler for being on time, so even if it had been two years since he’d last seen her and half a year since they’d last had contact he was sure she wouldn’t have changed that much.

Her message had sure come as one hell of a shock.

It still stunned him that she’d contacted him after all this time. After another week spent training in his team’s relentless schedule he’d been looking forward to a weekend of downtime with the guys, and the last thing he’d expected when he’d checked his e-mails first thing this morning was to find one from Rachel.

I don’t know if this will reach you or if you’re even stateside right now, but I need to talk to you about something urgent. In person, if possible, but over the phone if you’re not in the area anymore. I’m still in Baltimore. Please let me know ASAP. Rachel.

She’d sent it at just after oh-one-hundred-hours this morning, and that set his instincts jangling all on its own, but he’d also picked up on her palpable concern in the message.

He’d been surprised enough to see her name in his inbox, let alone that she’d reached out to him about whatever had happened, since she was the one to make it clear six months ago that she didn’t want further contact with him. There was only one reason he could think of to warrant such a message after all this time: she was in trouble. Just the thought of it brought all his protective instincts roaring to the surface.

He hadn’t seen her for over two years. He was thirty-two now and she’d be twenty-seven. They’d met back in college when she’d started tutoring him in physics and they’d quickly become good friends—and could have been so much more if he hadn’t let them drift apart—so making the hour long drive to Silver Spring from Quantico was nothing. If Rachel needed him, he’d be there.

A flash of movement at the door caught his attention. He caught sight of a woman’s shapely silhouette through the frosted glass, and when it swung open to reveal Rachel standing there, he felt like an invisible fist had reached into his chest and squeezed the air out of his lungs. She scanned the café, head high, posture erect, and when those hazel-green eyes landed on him he felt a ripple of primal awareness punch through him. Jesus, all this time later and the sight of her still took his breath away.

An expression of relief flashed across her pretty face when she saw him but then she seemed to falter for a second before offering a hesitant smile that made his hand tighten around his coffee cup. He hated that seeing him again made her uneasy, but he knew it was his own fault. God knew he regretted not going after her. Back then he’d had his reasons for letting her go. At the time they’d seemed like good reasons, too. Staring at her now, starved for the sight of her, it merely confirmed what he’d known all along.

He’d been a fucking idiot.

While on assignment with the NSA team, hunting for Hassani in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the shit he’d seen had made him realize what a huge mistake he’d made in letting her go. He’d finally been able to contact her after coming back stateside, only to receive a polite but firm response basically telling him that she’d moved on and not to contact her anymore. Which was why he was eternally grateful for that e-mail this morning.

Relaxing his grip on his mug, he nodded at her once. He stood to wait for her, never taking his eyes off her as she crossed to his booth. Her biracial features were a fascinating blend of Scots-Irish father, and Asian, given to her by her American father and Chinese mother respectively. She was dressed casually in a pale pink top that hugged her slender frame and emphasized the pert curve of her breasts in a damn distracting way.

The snug, dark denim skirt hit her several inches above the knee, giving him an eyeful of the toned muscles in those killer legs, set off by the wedge heels she had on. She wore her dark brown hair loose around her shoulders in shiny waves he’d always wanted to run his fingers through. Not that he’d ever get the chance now.

“Hi,” she said as she reached the table, the smile slipping a little as she stopped on the opposite side of the booth as though unsure how close she should get.

“Hey. Been a long time,” he said.
Way too long.

“Yes.” Delicate color stole into her smooth, golden-toned face as she seemed to hesitate again, like she wasn’t sure whether she should shake his hand or just sit.

Screw that.

Hating the awkwardness between them, wanting an end to it, Jake reached out and drew her into his arms for a quick hug, trying but failing to ignore how the feel and smell of her affected him. “How’ve you been?”

She returned the embrace and seemed to relax a bit, but the imprint of her lithe body against his and her sweet vanilla scent reminded him of all the reasons why he’d kept his distance from her in the first place. Shit, she felt good. Even better than he remembered.

“Good. You?” She pulled back far enough to put some distance between them and look into his eyes.

“Good,” he echoed, and gestured for her to sit. When she’d settled into the booth he sat down across from her. “It was a nice surprise to hear from you.”

That faint blush in her cheeks deepened. “I’m glad. I wasn’t even sure if that e-mail address would work anymore.”

His personal one that he only gave out to a select handful of people. But that wouldn’t mean anything to her at this point. They were virtual strangers now.

Letting his famished gaze catalogue her features once more, he got to the point. “So. You okay? Your message sounded like something bad had happened.”

“Yeah, I just have some information I wanted to report. I’m not a hundred percent positive that I’m right so I wanted someone I could trust in case I’m wrong, and you were the first person who came to mind.”

Though he liked knowing she still trusted him that much, he frowned in concern. “What’s going on? Are you in some kind of trouble?” Whatever it was, he’d make sure he handled it.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, lowering her gaze to her lap. “If I’m wrong about everything at least with you I won’t feel like a total idiot, and if I’m right, then…” She shrugged and glanced around as if to make sure no one was listening in, and his protective instincts began to hum louder. Rachel was the least flighty and drama-prone woman he knew, so if she thought something was wrong then it likely was and he wanted to know exactly what they were dealing with.

He lowered his voice as he leaned forward more. “What’s going on?”

Rachel sighed. “It’s someone my brother’s been hanging around with lately, over the last month or so, I guess. I think I saw him on the FBI’s Most Wanted list last night, right before I e-mailed you.”

His eyebrows shot up in astonishment. Why the hell was Brandon hanging out with someone on the Most Wanted list? “Who is he?”

She dug her phone out of her purse and accessed the list. “I think this is him,” she said quietly, holding the screen toward him.

Jake studied the picture for a moment before reading the name below it. Xang Xu. Not familiar to him, but the guy was listed for international cyber crimes. Wasn’t Jake’s department, but he could put her in touch with the right people and in the meantime he sure as hell would take measures to ensure she and her brother were safe.