Danger Mine: A Base Branch Novel

T
he unauthorized reproduction
or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

P
ublished
by MM Publishing LLC

Edited by Lacey Thacker

Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Designs

D
anger Mine

All Rights Are Reserved. Copyright 2015 by Megan Mitcham

First electronic publication: July 2015

First print publication: July 2015

Digital ISBN: 978-1-941899-13-7

Print ISBN: 978-1-941899-14-4

K
hani glared
at the stacks of evidence and personnel files bloating her desk, the laptop that choked on its overflowing inbox, and a calendar stacked with meetings from before dawn until well past dusk. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her dinner had come and gone. She cleared another operative under the Eastern Headquarters of Base Branch Command from suspicion of treason with the scroll of her signature on another eighty-page report.

Thirteenth operative down. Only four more to go.

“Fuck you very much, Carmen Ruez.”

The phone—hidden in the glut of her workspace—trilled. It snapped the last nerve in her overwrought system. Khani stood, snatched the receiver off the cradle, and then slammed it down.

The only person she wanted to talk to would call her cell. But damnit, he hadn’t done so for two irritating days. Plus, all international emergencies funneled through her cell. Her fingers drummed the black plastic. She wouldn’t call again. No use in it.

Her fingers wandered over the pre-set numbers to the directors of the UN, the CIA, the MI6, and all the other organizations that helped shape the political climate of the world. They danced across the extra long cord. Proven by her actions before she left London, her self-control had plummeted to earth, parachute be damned.

She hiked the receiver to her ear and dialed the same number she had twenty times today. Like every time before the call went straight to voicemail. Zeke’s dark baritone and thick English accent filled the line. “Fuck off, unless you’re my sister.” Despite her mounting agitation over his lack of communication, a smile tickled the corners of her mouth. Like sister, like brother.

The message beeped. “Z, quit pouting and call me. I’m—”

A knock at her door halted the words. Unlike the main hallways of offices, Khani’s office was nestled down a maze of corridors in a secluded corner of the floor. It suited her just fine. No one dropped by unannounced. Usually.

What she wouldn’t give to have Rhonda, her and Vail’s administrative assistant, back. The woman still had five more weeks of recovery from a gunshot wound she sustained on the premises two weeks ago.

“I’m getting worried,” she continued. “And you know, I don’t worry about much.” Khani replaced the phone. She moved the bottom of the leather jacket she wore, revealing her side-arm. Bad guys usually didn’t knock. She never did. But in light of recent events, cautious was better than dead. “Come in.”

The woman responsible for every shit thing in Khani’s life over the last month and a half sauntered into the office. Her petite curves undulated with every step. Carmen Ruez’ brunette hair gathered at her nape in a low ponytail. The sun-kissed skin that added to the woman’s Latin-goddess looks chalked around her cheeks. She looked like hell.

Sadistic satisfaction lightened Khani’s mood. Though she had her reasons, it still made her a downright gobby person. “We’re meeting on the range in ten minutes.”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I tried to call, but it didn’t connect.” Carmen stopped at the black leather armchairs opposite the white lacquered desk. She gripped the top edge of the chair and inhaled. “I might not make it.”

“You’re here. You’ll make it.”

“Oh no.” Carmen lunged for the rubbish bin.

Khani averted her gaze in time enough that she heard and didn’t see the-bringer-of-bad-news toss the contents of her stomach in with the crumpled sticky notes and classified files that would be incinerated at the end of the day.

“Bloody hell, it’s only a preliminary test. Not the final. It’s nothing to get worked up over. I’ve scheduled others to test with you, so you won’t feel pressured.”

“So
I
won’t feel pressured or
you
won’t?” The woman’s chin kicked up and she managed to look haughty on her knees hugging the trashcan.

“Pardon me?” Khani braced her hand on the butt of her new American-made 1911. When in Rome…

“I know you don’t like me.” Not a hint of her Latin upbringing curled her r’s, even though anger thickened the woman’s tone. Carmen wiped a hand over her mouth. A sapphire rock surrounded by glittering diamonds clung to her “it’s official” finger.

“You breached the walls of a place sacred to me. You shot my commander. You ran him around long enough that a hit squad located your piece-of-shit brother in our state of the art facility, broke in, and nearly killed my co-worker. Your family turned one of our own against us. In the history of this organization, that’s never happened. And you made me miss vacation with my brother, twice. So no, I really don’t like you.”

“If you’re going to shoot me get it over with already, before I puke myself to death.”

Khani slipped her hand from the now heated metal of her gun and straightened her jacket. “Sophie is the coolest chick I’ve ever met and she loves you. Vail has his moments and he loves you too. For them, I won’t shoot you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to be best friends. I won’t forgive what you did any time soon. And I definitely won’t forget it.”

Carmen teetered. The arm not snuggling the bin shot out and strangled the ledge of Khani’s desk. She heaved a breath. “Me neither. I don’t know how Vail forgave me.”

“Because he’s a sappy love pup trapped in the body of a superhero.”

The pretty Latina swung her head around, centering Khani in her pretty eyes. “Do you have a thing for him?”

“No.” She managed to keep a straight face and mentally patted herself on the back.

“Shit.” Carmen’s body arched around the can again. Retching echoed out of the tin.

“Is Sophie sick?” Khani crossed the room, grabbed the towel from her workout bag and a bottle of water from the mini fridge.

Her long ponytail swooshed across her back with the shake of her head.

“Did you eat some crap from a street vendor?”

The ponytail danced again.

Khani scooted the leather chair next to her back. “Come on. Up. Up.”

Carmen pushed off the floor and collapsed back into the chair with the puke bucket in hand. A whiff of acid hit Khani square in the jaw. Good thing bodily functions didn’t rank on her give-a-shit scale. She just didn’t want to clean it up.

“You know that’s your rubbish bin now, don’t you?”

A half laugh, half groan shook her torso. “If you did…like him, I could understand it. You work together. You—”

“He’s a great guy, which makes him not my type.” Khani thrust the towel and water at her. “Are you done yet or just warming up?”

“What is your type?”

“None of your business.”

She set the glorified vomit bag on the other side of her and blotted her forehead with the terrycloth. “I think that’s it, for now.”

Khani’s breath caught on the tip of her tongue. Her mind wandered down a tragic path for a split second. Was Vail’s woman seriously sick? She couldn’t be. He didn’t deserve that. Carmen didn’t deserve that either. No matter how much she’d screwed up on her path to freedom. “Are you sick, I mean really sick?”

A huge smile lit Carmen’s face. Just like that, the pallor of death lifted from her cheeks. Her eyes misted over. “No. I’m not sick. It’s no big deal. Really.”

The alert honked on Khani’s phone, telling her she needed to get to the shooting range. “Let me examine you. If you’re running a fever, I’m not going to let you contaminate my guys. They’re active and can’t afford down time.”

“I’m not feverish, but you can do your doctor thing if it makes you feel better.”

“Damn right I can.” She knelt in front of Carmen and held her hand out. “That’s quite a ring.”

“It’s too much.”

Khani pressed several of Carmen’s bare fingernails. As soon as she released the pressure color poured back into the nail bed. She held the back of her hand to the woman’s forehead. A clammy sheen clung around her hairline, but her cheeks gained pigment by the second. After a quick count on her pulse, Khani stood and flattened her slacks into place.

“If you’re up to it, you’re good to shoot. If not, we can reschedule for tomorrow.” If she wasn’t on a plane headed to the middle of no-f-ing-place to find her brother.

“Let me freshen up and I’ll be ready. I know Vail really wants me to get through the preliminary qualifications so I can get to work.”

“You aced the written exam last week and made it through the kill house like a beast. All you have left is PT and long-range accuracy. Then you’ll be put with one of our best to train in the field.”

Her eyes bugged. “The field? I thought I was qualifying for an office job.”

“You are, but everyone in the office with the exception of admins and techs have been in the field. If you’re ordering people on the ground you need to know what it’s like to be face to face with the barrel of a gun, eye-to-eye with the bad guys. It makes for more efficient mission planners, intelligence distributers.”

“Oh.” Her gaze drifted into the distance, acclimating to the news.

“He just wants you to have something of your own, so you’ll be happy with all the abrupt changes.” Khani shrugged. “The loo is out my door and to the left.”

Her gaze snapped back to the present. “I can’t do this.”

“Then we’ll reschedule. It’s not a big deal.”

“No.” Carmen sat the unopened bottle of water on the desk and shifted her knees toward Khani. She fidgeted for a second, and then wedged her palms between her clamped legs. “I mean I can’t go into the field.”

“I heard you were pretty bad ass. I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about.” Wow, Khani had said she wasn't going to be this woman’s BFF, hadn’t she? Yet here she was getting way too involved. Why, for the love of God?

Carmen grabbed the terry cloth from her lap and twisted the fabric to within an inch of its useful life.

“What is it, Carmen? Save us both the heartache and give. You know I’ll get it out of you one way or the other.”

That got her attention. The shoulders slumped in silent misery squared at Khani. Her wide gaze narrowed in challenge.

Sod it, she liked the lady’s backbone. “What it is?”

“I’m late.”

“As in…up the duff?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Khani tossed her arms into the air, giving vent to her dismay. Shit. To her way of thinking, this was worse than being terminally ill. “You know preggers, with child, totally shit-balls crazy you’re having a baby?”

“Seriously looks that way with the morning and night pukefests.”

“You don’t know for sure? I mean, you haven’t taken a test?”

“I’ve been a bit busy getting Sophie a wardrobe, registered for school, acclimated to a new city. Plus all my training hours.” Her head bobbed in perfect choreography with her defense.

Air puffed out Khani’s cheeks like a hot air balloon. Slowly she let them deflate. The girls had only been in the city for a two and a half, maybe three weeks now. Vail had been in New York for one of those reassuring the directors that Base Branch DC was secure in spite of evidence to the contrary. Of course they’d been holed up in a cabin in the middle of the woods for a while before that. Apparently there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment. “Talk about fast work.”

“I know.” Carmen wilted against the chair back. “I can’t believe it myself.” Her gaze landed on her flat belly. The smile returned, but she pressed her lips together in a line. “Vail doesn’t even know yet. I know he wanted this. I just don’t know how he’ll feel about it happening so fast.”

“He’ll be over the damn moon, and ban you from working in the field ever again.”

“I can’t say as I’m disappointed. I trained to do all that out of necessity, but I don’t relish the life. I don’t know how you do it all the time.”

“It’s the only thing that keeps me sane.” Khani grabbed her cell phone off the desk and straightened. “Come on. You have a date with the shooting range, if for nothing else than for bragging rights.”

“Bragging rights?” Carmen fell in step next to Khani with the puke bucket held away from them. Amazingly, the urge to strangle her had faded in the short time they’d spent getting chatty.

Khani held the door for Carmen. “V told me you picked off a quarter at sixty-nine meters, which means you’ll hold your own with my guys. Not many people can do that and even fewer of them have boobs.”

“I need to stop by the bathroom first.”

“There’s one on the way.” She pointed at the bin, and then next to her door. “Just set that there. The cleaning crew will hate me, but they’ll take care of it. Hell, they’ll probably be thankful it isn’t a body.”

Carmen chuckled and relieved herself of the can. “You Brits and your sense of humor.”

“I was being serious.” Khani hooked a right and headed down the stairs to the basement. The other woman kept pace like she hadn’t just tossed her guts. “When are you going to tell Vail? I’m pretty good at keeping secrets, but I don’t want to keep things from him. Your relationship with him is based on trust, so is mine. I don’t want to tell your news, but I won’t lie to him either.”

“He’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll take a test this evening and tell him tomorrow night.” Carmen held the door at the sub-level of the high-rise. “I hope this won’t put you guys in a bind. Vail made it seem like you really needed someone else to help out in command.”

At the massive vault door, Khani allowed the computer to scan her retina. She entered her access code and swiped her access card. The door receded into the wall long enough for her and Carmen to enter the armory.

“He does. I’m in the field a lot, running my team. But I have someone else in mind for the job, had before you came along. I just have to track her down.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you, but some people don’t want to be found.” Khani nodded toward the bathroom. “We’ll be on the range whenever you’re ready.”

“You’re pretty nice for someone who doesn’t even like me.”

“Don’t spread that around. It’d ruin my reputation. I’d have to smash you into the ground with my boot to earn it back.”

“My lips are sealed.” Carmen covered both hands over her mouth like the speak-no-evil monkey as she pushed the door open with her bottom.

When she disappeared around the corner Khani slipped her phone from her coat pocket and checked the screen. Nothing. She swallowed the disappointment and nearly gagged on the bitterness.