Betrayals (Black Cipher Files series Book 2) (18 page)

I tried to ease off the sofa to take cover, but my legs gave out.

He frowned. “I’ve got you.”

Maybe once but not anymore.

“Honey, I’m home.” Zeke’s voice carried into the living area. “And we’ve got problems.”

He bustled in carrying multiple Styrofoam containers. The salty aroma of chicken noodle soup perfumed the air. My stomach gurgled.

“Sit rep?”

“Definitely a deuce in the lobby watching the elevators for this tower. There might have been a single at the elevators to the newer tower.” He peeled the lid off of the container and set the steaming soup in front of me, careful to keep the coffee table between us.

I nodded at him, still uncomfortable with the fact that he worked for the NSA. “Thanks.”

“Uh, yeah.” Zeke popped open another container and dropped into the chair across from the sofa. “They might have been watching me.”

“You’re not sure?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.

“I’m not a field agent,” he grumped. “I’m a programmer.”

“What are you doing here then?”

“You’re the reason we’re here.”

“Don’t look at me. I’ve been in New York for two days without any problems,” I said sarcastically.

But I’d met with Sergeant Ravini just a few hours earlier. I didn’t have to share that information. I damn well wasn’t sticking around if they had people following them. Of course, I wasn’t sticking around period.

“The big question is why...and how?” Jordan said. “The bicycle surveillance took skill. And why would they be following me? I’m just an analyst for a think tank.”

Big duh. The US government didn’t need a reason, just a directive from someone. “Did you make any secret of the fact you were traveling together?”

Zeke’s eyes widened, revealing a clear ocean blue, his pale lashes blinking slowly. “We booked separately but shared a taxi. Sat next to each other on the plane.”

“We didn’t think there was any need to hide,” Jordan said calmly.

I snorted. “There’s always a need for camouflaging your actions. You don’t know who is watching or why. And you never know who is being paid to pass along information.”

Jordan shot me a startled look.

Yeah, that was how I lived my life.

“Did you register under your real names?” They couldn’t have been that naive–could they?

“Uh, yeah.”

I thunked my forehead into the palm of my hand.

Zeke paused, a fork full of salad halfway to his lips. He was staring off to the left as if he were solving some complex math equation in his head. The fork dropped back into the styrofoam container. “We forgot an important fact.”

“What?” Jordan asked.

Zeke jabbed the fork at us. “Susan Chen’s accomplice had connections. Connections we never did uncover. Susan either doesn’t know who he was working with...or she isn’t saying.”

“Or no one told you about it,” Jordan completed.

Zeke blew out a breath. “Yeah. Dammit.”

“What does this have to do with being followed? Or me?”

“At one point, they used the Secret Service, the FBI, and we think even the Defense Intelligence Agency to try and track Jamie Hunt down.”

“Jesus, to have those kinds of connections....” I trailed off. You had to have a butt load of power. And the crowbar to wield it.

“What if they’re following you?” I pointed at Zeke. “Maybe they picked up Jordan as a person of interest because he is traveling with you and the surveillance has nothing to do with him. Especially if you traveled together openly.”

Zeke shoved a bite of salad into his mouth. “Maybe. Again, you’re looking at multiple surveillance teams, which means manpower and money. Someone with a lot of cojones had to authorize the money and mobilize the agencies. Power.”

Jordan looked perplexed. “To what purpose? Why would the government use so many resources? The only law enforcement subject currently getting that kind of coverage relates directly to terrorism.”

“Holy shit.” Zeke jabbed his fork at me. “You are linked to terrorists.”

“Indirectly, yeah. But I’m dead.” I smirked.

Jordan shoved his food container away, as if the flip comment soured his stomach. “Whoever’s been surveilling your townhouse sure doesn’t think so.”

“And only certain people know that you aren’t really linked indirectly or directly to terrorists.” Then Zeke pointed his fork at Jordan. “Next. What about the fallout from your meeting with the Senator?”

Jordan stiffened imperceptibly. If I hadn’t been observing closely I might have missed it.

“Doesn’t seem likely.” Jordan shrugged. “And why? Following me wouldn’t get him information on the shooting.”

“What Senator?” That’s what caused him to tense up.

Waiting for his answer, I took a sip of the chicken noodle soup and nearly moaned. Warm and smooth, the salty broth exploded on my taste buds. “God, this is good.”

“Anything tastes good when you’re starving yourself to death,” Jordan said acidly.

“It’s all the rage in Africa.”

Zeke’s head swiveled back and forth between the two of us for a minute. “Children. Can we focus, please?” His mouth turned down, lines of tension bracketing his lips.

“Right. What Senator?”

“It’s irrelevant.” Jordan finally popped open his container.

“Senator Jordan,” Zeke replied. “He tried to shake down our buddy here for information.”

He didn’t want to talk about Senator Jordan. I ran through what I knew of the man. Distinguished and established senator from Virginia. On the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence.

“He’d have the power.”

“Again, to what purpose?” Jordan’s question seemed more angry than defensive.

“We don’t need to know his purpose. Right now, we just need to figure out the target.” The edge in Zeke’s voice was unmistakable now, drawing my attention back to him.

I suddenly wondered, again, what Zeke’s angle was and why he was here.

“Why aren’t you working?”

“I’m on administrative leave, pending an investigation to see whether I compromised National Security.” Zeke looked pissed. “As if.”

My brain started firing synapses I think had been in semi-permanent hibernation.

“If you are the target,” I gestured at Zeke, “then I need to get out of this room.”

“If I’m the target,” he looked pointedly at me. “I’m fucked.”

I poured a large gulp of the soup into my mouth, running through scenarios and possibilities until I came up with one that suited my needs.

“We need to separate. You need to start doing vacation stuff.”

“I don’t take vacations.”

I ignored him. “Draw them off, whether they are looking for me or checking you two out. If you go do typical touristy things, then they’ll be convinced you don’t have anything going on.”

“I’m going home. I accomplished my mission.”

I tensed up again. “What mission?”

Jordan slathered butter on a still warm roll and handed it to me.

“Help this guy here find you. And look.” Zeke lifted his hands up beside his face as if surprised. “You’re found.”

I took a bite and tried not to moan at how good the yeasty warm bread tasted.

They’d accomplished their mission.

They could go.

I could go.

We’d all go. They could go back to figuring out who was following them. And I would go back to figuring out who wanted me dead.

Alone.

I flicked the crumbs of the bread from my thighs and stood up. “Thanks for the information about...everything.”

I tried to brush away heaviness in my chest and throat as easily as the crumbs.

I looked around for my cardigan, smiling benignly. Then I wrapped the warm sweater around my shoulders, grabbed my messenger bag, and headed for the door.

Shit. It was beyond hard to get my throat working properly. I had to use all of my acting skills so that good bye would come out nonchalantly and slightly cool.

“Jordan.” I only half turned my head, hoping he’d let me leave without a confrontation, dimly noting the dropped jaw from Zeke as his gaze shifted back and forth between Jordan and me. For an infinitesimal moment, I thought my exit would be successful.

Then, Jordan barred the door, narrowed his gaze.

I took a step closer to the exit.

The subtle scent, uniquely his, drifted toward me, warm and musky as his temperature and blood pressure rose.

He didn’t yell. Didn’t chastise. Just shifted his shoulder to completely block the door. “I don’t think so.”

“You found me. You delivered the information.” I didn’t touch him, but the urge to reach out and just lightly skim over the hard, firm muscles of his shoulder tempted me.

Something about the position of our bodies, standing just a hair’s breadth away, one small sway from our bodies melding and molding to each other, reminded me of a time when we’d have been making up and halfway to bed by now.

The longing to go back to that easier time struck at my heart.

Definitely not a memory to have while trying to leave.

“I need to get out of here.”

“You need the antidote.”

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone you...located me.”

“You need the antidote.”

“I’m fine.” I felt fine. Sort of.

“Yeah. You look great.” He hadn’t moved forward at all and yet his posture was stronger, bigger, and somehow more menacing.

“I don’t want any more drugs.” Why take an antidote when I didn’t feel any different? Besides, until I figured out who wanted me dead, I couldn't trust anyone.

“You need the antidote,” Zeke said.

Okay. Play this out and see what they were going for.

“And how would the antidote be delivered?”

At that, Zeke looked uncomfortable, looked to Jordan. “You want to take this one?”

Jordan straightened his shoulders. “I have to take you to the NSA.”

No fucking way. So not happening.

I believed Jordan believed what he was saying but he wouldn’t be the first to be manipulated by false information.

“Has it ever occurred to you that this is some elaborate scheme to get you to bring me in?” I directed my question to Jordan. “They’ve concocted this whole drug pretense to get your aid and bring me in.”

“Why?”

The Department 5491 I’d been investigating had been top secret and hidden deep. Once I’d discovered the connection, it had taken months of painstaking research and dead ends to dig up more information to relate the twelve names on the list into a cohesive structure.

I still wasn’t even sure what all the data meant.

“I’d been investigating a secret department within the NSA.”

“5491.” Jordan nodded.

I blinked. “You know about it?”

That was information I needed to think about.

 “All of the people given the gene manipulation drug were from your 5491 list,” Zeke blurted.

That information gave me pause. “All of them?”

“Yeah.”

Jordan hesitated. “One of the...subjects died.”

“Brad Johnson.”

“Yeah.”

The circumstances of his death had been unusual. Although the press had reported the sensationally public death, reading between the lines I’d known more had been going on.

“He’d been engaging in serious risk-taking behavior,” Jordan said.

I laughed. Didn’t we all?

“His addiction to adrenaline was magnified by the effects of this drug. He literally took outrageous chances outside the realm of even his previous danger level.” Zeke paced around the room.

“Hello. Anyone who works in the espionage business is an adrenaline junkie.”

We stood in the foyer, Zeke off to the side, Jordan trying to make his posture as intimidating as possible.

“What will it take to convince you that this is in your best interests?” Jordan asked softly.

“Nothing,” I said. “If I go to the NSA my safety will be compromised.”

“No.”

“Yes,” I said emphatically. “Besides. Who’s to say they didn’t set me up in the first place?”

The sound of Linkin’ Park blared in the tiny alcove. We all jumped.

Zeke’s cell. He checked the display. “It’s Jamie.”

He stepped away to take the call, and all I could think about was GPS locators and wonder if this was the set up and they would take me in against my will.

I wouldn’t be able to fight them off.

“I need to go.” I appealed to Jordan, hoping he could do this last thing for me. “You found me. You delivered the information. I’m okay.”

“Fine.”

I relaxed momentarily. He was letting me go. Except, this was Jordan. I needed to consider what other angle he might be working.

“No following me.”

“No following.” He agreed.

I should be pleased, but the wash of disappointment was stronger and more intense than I’d expected.

“We both go,” he said.

The disappointment evaporated. “Alone.”

“Either we go together or you don’t get out of this hotel room.”

Resolutely I stiffened my spine. “Alone.”

“Not happening.”

Stalemate.

I leaned in closer and the slight scent of his lunch and the smell of his shampoo suddenly overwhelmed me.

God. The citrus-y odor from his hair surged through my senses, knocking into me like a tidal wave.

I couldn’t stand it.

Nausea welled uncontrollably. I ran for the tiny bathroom, arriving at the toilet just in time to expel the lovely soup I’d just consumed.

Over the sound of my vomiting, I heard Zeke say, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

TWENTY-ONE

Jordan hovered behind Staci, watching her spew her guts out.

He brushed the hair back from her face with one hand and grabbed a dry wash cloth with the other, trying to quell his own stomach as she threw up.

Turning on the hot water, quickly he dampened the cloth, then squeezed out the excess water. A myriad of emotions swirled through him as he tried to objectively observe her on the floor.

She looked...fragile.

Unlike the warrior woman he’d known before.

This bundle of bones and bravado was so far removed from his Staci he had trouble reconciling the two as the same woman.

He gently rubbed the warm cloth over her face. Her lashes lay like dark blond crescents against her splotchy skin. Tenderly he wiped at her mouth. “Okay?”