Assassin's Promise, The Red Team Series, Book 5 (12 page)

Kit folded his arms and leveled a hard glare at her. “It appears they have an interest in you. I think we can help each other.”

She looked around the room. A meaner bunch of mercenaries she’d never seen. Well, really, she’d never knowingly seen a mercenary at all before Greer, but if she had, they’d look like these men.
 

“No, thanks. I’m not interested. I don’t want anything to do with the WKB. And I don’t want to put my work with the Friendship Community in jeopardy. It’s taken me years to get permission to conduct on-site interviews with them, which they’ve only just granted this year. I’m very close to being able to draft several articles on their unique society.”

“We don’t intend to jeopardize your work, doctor. We just want to piggyback on it for our investigation.”

Another quick glance around the room. “And who did you say your organization is working for?” She’d checked out Greer, but Mr. Villalobo had provided only a minimal amount of info.

“I didn’t.” Kit sent a look over at the man leaning against the wall, who gave him a hint of a nod. “We’re a private security company. We’ve been contracted by the Department of Homeland Security to assist in their investigation into domestic and foreign terrorists operating in this area.”

Remi’s mouth opened. What the hell had she gotten herself into? These men
were
mercenaries. Oh, God. Greer’s big hand took hold of hers—for comfort or warning, she didn’t know.

“We’re asking for your help, Dr. Chase. Take Greer into the community and help him get some of our questions answered.”

Remi nodded. “I’ll talk to the elders on your behalf, but I’m not bringing Greer in with me. He’s a stranger to them.”

Kit smiled, like the warning snarl of a wolf baring his teeth in a silent growl. “True that. To simply have him accompany you would be inappropriate. You’ll be bringing your
husband
with you.”

Reality screeched to an abrupt halt as Remi’s clusterfuck sensors fired. “They know I’m not married.”
 

“Tell them you recently got married.”

She pulled away from Greer, and laughed as she reached for her things, which helped unlock her chest and her lungs and calm her terror.
 

“You’re good, Mr. Bolanger.” She looked around the room. “All of you, in fact. You had me going there for a minute. Tell me, did Clancy Weston put you up to this? ’Cause sometimes I think he’s crazy like that.”
 

That was the best answer for what was happening. Except her assistant—even as oddball as he was—wouldn’t smash her doors in just to set up a joke.
 

Oh, God. This was real. This was really real.

She stared at her things, trying to figure out how she could unwind the day and have it play out differently. Greer touched her shoulder. She looked up into his warm brown eyes.

“Please, Remi. We need you. A lot of people need you.”

“Dr. Chase,” Owen said in a supremely calm voice, “please tell us everything you know about the Friendship Community.”

“Everything I know about them?” She looked over at the cool-tempered boss. “How long do you have?”

“As long as it takes.”

She looked at Greer, who gave her a supporting nod. “I’ve told them some of the obvious things, but assume we know nothing about them.”

Remi moved to the front of the room, deciding to treat the group as she would any other class. For the next hour, she gave the history of the group, from its founding in the first half of the nineteenth century to its current incarnation. Each generation had left its touch on the community, which had started as a secular group pursuing its vision of a perfect society. It was one of very few that survived, in any form, from the original movement over a century and a half ago.
 

“Why does it still exist?” Owen asked.

“It’s come close to collapsing several times. In the 1870s, when there was a gold rush in the Medicine Bows, they lost a great deal of their population. Fortunately for the Friends, that rush played out rather quickly. It lost some of its population to both world wars. The Great Depression was a boon for them. Their community never stopped its standard practices, although they had started to slowly integrate with mainstream society before the depression. A few dozen drifters, traveling between farms for work, stumbled upon the community and stayed there. They had a small boom in population that got bled off during World War II. They are a pacifist community, but they didn’t become conscientious objectors until the Vietnam War.

“Something changed in their community around then. During the Cold War, the group walled themselves in, only leaving the community for their annual trades during Cheyenne’s Frontier Days Rodeo. Over the last three generations, they’ve returned to their root values as an agrarian society.”

“And now,” Greer said, “there’s another small boom in their population, but it’s not from within.”

Remi nodded. “I’ve discovered an anomalous trend. Their community appears to be losing teenagers at an alarming rate. Nonetheless, I think they’re one of the few groups who could survive a World War III.” She didn’t miss the look Kit and Owen exchanged.

“How so?” Kit asked.

“They are fully self-sufficient. They only need to raise enough funds from their annual trading to cover property taxes and buy the few things they can’t provide for themselves. Otherwise, they grow or raise their own food. Make their own clothes. Build their own houses. Govern themselves without outside influences. They know how to survive without modern services or technology.”
 

“So what’s the WKB’s interest in them?” Greer asked.

“I’m not sure they have an interest. Their two societies are diametrically opposed to each other. If anything, the Friends provide a nice buffer between the world and the WKB.”

“I don’t think that’s all it is,” the one called Ty said. “The WKB bought the land their biker compound’s on during the Cold War. They could have bought any of the newly decommissioned missile silos around the country. Why that one?”

She looked around the room, trying to understand the implications of that comment.

“Doc, what’s the nature of your relationship with the Friendship Community?” Kit asked.

“We’re on friendly terms.”

“Good. So getting Greer inside shouldn’t be a big problem.”

She looked at Greer, whose face was hard and expressionless. Yes, she could go to the Friends’ village at will, but bringing him in put everything at risk.
 

She glanced at Kit. “I don’t think you fully understand the impact of what you’re asking. The Friends are an isolationist community. They’re extremely wary of outsiders, very closed off to strangers. It took me three years to finally gain their trust to the point where I can visit with them not just at Frontier Days, but at their compound, too.”

Kit’s face was set. “Think of it this way, doctor. You have a choice. You can take Greer in. He’ll follow your lead. He’ll be respectful of the Friends—and your work. And you’ll control the interactions. Or our FBI contact will send in a team of investigators and potentially tear the place wide open. I think our way will net more info and cause less damage.”

Remi nodded, horrified at the disruption a bunch of FBI investigators could do—potentially irreversible harm to a community as fragile as the Friends.

She sighed. “I’ll do it. But I’ll need to bring them some gifts as a sign of goodwill.” If they were going to force this issue, then at least she could see to it that the community benefitted.

“Give Greer the list,” Kit said. “I want you two out there tomorrow.”

Greer met her eyes, his gaze warm and determined. She nodded. This whole thing was rolling forward, with or without her. Hopefully, she could keep it from being a complete disaster.

Chapter Eleven

Greer fetched a glass of water from the kitchen, then walked back to his room through the darkened house. The only light was the thin beam that came from beneath Remi’s door. A shadow crossed it, making the beam blink. Looked like she was pacing.

He went down the hall to her room. “Hey, Remi. You okay?” he called through the door.

The shadow in the light paused. He wondered what was going through her head. Maybe she was going to keep still and pretend she was sleeping. After a long moment, she opened the door.
 

She crossed her arms and looked up at him. “No. I’m not okay.”

“I’m sorry. It’s a shitty situation.” He took his phone out of his jeans pocket and flipped to his pictures. Holding his phone up to her, he showed her photos of her new doors.

Her nostrils flared. “I was hoping this was all a joke that my assistant took too far.”

Greer frowned. “That the sort of thing he would do?”

She handed his phone back. “While I’m not certain he’s rowing with matching oars, I don’t think he’d go this far.”

“Has he done similar things before?”

“Not similar things. He does take practical jokes to an extreme, though.”

Greer studied her as he considered that. “Text me his name. I’ll check him out.”

Her eyes widened. “How can you do that?”

“A little thing called technology.” He grinned. “Want some water?”

She took the glass. Her fingers brushed his. He watched her throat move as she took a couple of sips. She pressed the ice-cold glass to her forehead. She caught him staring at her and handed his glass back.

“If you’re too warm, I can adjust the air conditioner,” he offered.

“I’m not warm. My head is throbbing.”

“Okay. That’s it. You need some rest.” He took her hand and stepped into the room, drawing her over to the far side of the bed. He set his water down, then folded back the covers, holding them up for her. “Get in.”

“What’s the point? I can’t sleep. I’m just going to get up and pace when you leave.”

“What’s pacing going to resolve?”

“Greer—”

“Bed, Remi. Now.”

Exasperation made her face scrunch and huff a sigh. She got under the covers, but defiantly stayed sitting up. He flipped off the light and took his water. He hadn’t made it to the far corner of the bed when she said, “Do you have to go? Maybe you could just talk to me until I sleep?”

Greer settled next to her on the bed. She was lying on her side now, her hands folded together under her head. There was such innocence about her. Maybe he could get her in and out of the Friendship Community before everything got even stranger, but given how things already were, his chances were slim.

“Did you do a lot of babysitting as a kid?” he asked, trying to get her mind off their situation. “You said, given the differences in our ages, that you could have babysat me.”

“Yes. We lived in a small community. Everyone helped each other.”

“Fort Collins wasn’t a small community, even back then.”

“Our social circle was.”
 

She watched him in the shadowy room. He couldn’t see her expression, but he liked how smoothly she dodged his comment.
 

“What did you mean when you said by the time I was old enough to sit you, you would have been guarding me?” she asked.

“My grandfather was a spy in two wars, Korean and Vietnam—three if you include the Cold War. He made enemies. They didn’t care that he was out of the business when he retired; they had scores to settle.” Greer leaned his head back against the headboard, remembering times he thought about too often, events that shaped his life.

“My baby sister was murdered when I was six.”

“Oh my God.” She pushed herself up to her elbow. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not much of a bedtime story, is it? My grandfather made my parents move to a house he’d had specially constructed. Each floor had a panic room.”

“Did you ever have to use them?”

“Yeah. One time. But I guess once is enough. He moved in with us. His enemies came again.”

“You think his enemies killed your sister?”

“I know it.”

“What happened when they came again?”

“He and I got my parents and my two sisters into one of the panic rooms, then we took out the bad guys.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen. I’d been training with him since I was eight. I was raised to be an assassin.” He smiled and looked at her. “So you see, I wouldn’t have needed you to babysit me. I never was a baby.”

“Eight years old. Greer. Your parents were all right with that?”

“Gramps had worked hard, very hard, to keep his work life separate from his home life. He wanted my mom—his only kid—to have a normal life. She did. She was a kindergarten teacher. My dad was a middle school math teacher. Everything was peaches and cream. My parents thought Gramps was just giving me a break from being around my younger sisters.
 

“We would go camping, but they didn’t know it was survival camping. We met up with other men and their kids at mercenary camps where we were taught how to fight. How to build shelters. How to fish, hunt, and track. It was like the Boy Scouts on steroids. Every summer was boot camp all over again. We never told my parents what actually happened. Maybe they guessed, but they never asked. By the time I actually got to boot camp, it was a cakewalk.”

“So you’re legit badass.”

Greer shrugged. “I am what I’ve become. Legit or not, definitely badass.”

“Am I safe with you, Greer?”

“Yes.”

She reached over and wrapped a hand around his thumb.

“I’m glad you’re here, Remi. The WKB’s ruthless. For some reason, this particular project is attracting their attention.” He looked at her, wishing he could see her face better. “Any idea why that is?”

“No.”

She answered so quickly—maybe too quickly—to allay his fears.
 

“You know anyone named King?” he asked.

“I may. It’s not an uncommon surname.”

“But nobody stands out to you?”

She shook her head. “No. Who is he?”

“We don’t know yet. He’s someone who has his hands in everything. He’s one of the bad guys. If you come across him, steer clear.”

“I will.”

“Well, enough talking. You need to sleep.”

“What about you?” she asked.