Deceptive Treasures: Slye Temp Book 5 (26 page)

Dingo quipped, “And your Orion Hunters aren’t just as bad?”

“They are not mine and, no, they are not just as bad. Orion Hunters are far more deadly than all those terrorists combined. I would never kill for them and neither would my sister.”

“But she’s here now and part of this plan,” Blade prompted
. “Makes it hard to believe she isn’t aware that she’s being used as a weapon.”

Tanner let out an exhausted sound and repeated his words from earlier
. “Remember I asked if you trusted me, Jin?”

Yes and she’d like—so very much—to trust someone
. She needed help and he had wide shoulders to lean on. “I want to.”

“Tell us what you know about your sister and trust me to do the right thing.”

Three intense gazes focused on her.

She might as well be a mouse staring at a pack of feral cats
. These men were expected to do whatever it took to protect their country, which she could appreciate. But who would protect her sister?

Jin’s gaze settled on her answer
. Tanner.

The time had come to choose a side and hope that he was on hers and Patty’s
. “My sister was given the name Patty Smith before she was brought over. You will not find papers of her defection or any record of her becoming a naturalized citizen. She would have been given documentation that proves she grew up here with one American and one Korean parent who will have lived in different parts of the country to prevent anyone knowing them too well.”

When Blade’s face twisted with a surly expression, Jin said, “Surely you realize that the Orion Hunters are here as well.”

He just shook his head and leaned back in his chair, letting out a low whistle.

“What was your sister trained to do?” Dingo asked.

“She is a pilot. She will be the one to fly the airplane for the seeding.”  No one commented. Jin faced Tanner to make sure he understood just how much trust she was placing in him. “Once the seeding is completed, the Hunters will kill her. I heard that discussed when I hid to listen.”

Tanner nodded and that simple gesture gave Jin some hope that one man in this room understood how painful this was and her fear of letting her sister down
.

He asked, “How do we find Patty?”

“She will not be listed as simply Patty Smith. She would have been given a middle name or Patty might be her middle name or she may be married by now. The Orion Hunters spend years setting up something like this. The way to locate her is by determining where they will do the seeding.”

Blade slapped the arm of his chair
. “Shit, what a mess.”

The Aussie asked, “I thought the Orion Hunters were all about some artifacts and the end of the world
. Why are they doing this?”

“You are correct about their ultimate goal, but these are still people in positions within governments and companies
. Those positions require them to maintain their power for connections and to finance their operations. If this is successful, the Orion superiors in Pyongyang will go to the leader of North Korea and tell him what was done on his behalf. These Orion superiors will then move into more powerful positions.”

Facing frowns, Jin lifted her hands. “Orion Hunters believe if they are in influential positions when the truth about the final conflict is revealed, they will be able to manipulate the prophecy if their chosen country is not predicted to survive
. You would be wise to search your own government for these people.”

“Why is your sister the only one who can fly the airplane for this?”

“I am sure the Orions have other pilots in this country, and if something happened to Patty before the seeding flight, they would use one of them. But they chose Patty for three reasons.”  Jin counted off on her fingers. “Number one, she was a single female with no previous ties to the United States, so it was easy to bring her here and locate her geographically so that she is in position to be the pilot for this project. “Number two, in the three years she has been here, they will not have allowed her to form ties with anyone who is not in the Orion Hunter network, so no one will care to ask questions when she dies.

“Number three,” Jin went on, “she is a female, and therefore disposable
. They would not want to waste a male pilot, and they clearly said that the pilot was to be terminated after this project and it should be done to appear as an accident.”

“I can see that, but why do they want
you
?”  The blunt question had come from the Aussie. “Are you trained to do this seeding formula, too?”

“No. I perform lab tests on artifacts the Hunters bring to me.”

“Anyone could do that. They wanted you today. Set a trap to capture you. Or kill you. Why?”

Tanner’s phone buzzed and Jin pretended she waited on him to take his call before she answered.

Once he hung up, she’d have to find a way to dodge that question. She still wondered why the man who attacked her had tried to kill her, when she was far more valuable alive.

Tanner smiled while he listened to the person who had called him. “How long you going to milk a couple little ol’ bullet wounds just to get pampered by hot nurses?”

That had to be Tanner’s friend in the hospital. Jin’s shoulders lightened at the pleasure in Tanner’s voice. If he sounded that happy, his friend must be improving.

His smile disappeared
. “You’re shittin’ me. Where’d you find that out?”  As he listened, a grim change came over his face. “Thanks. We’re on our way over.”

Tanner’s gaze shot to her, but his words were for his men
. “We’ve got a lead on the location for the attack.”

How could he know so quickly
? The room spun with the fast loss of blood to her head. She put her hands out to steady herself.

What did this mean for Patty?

What does this mean for me?

Chapter Thirty-Five

Tanner walked toward White Hawk, who leaned against the wall next to Nick’s hospital room door
. She had one foot propped on the wall and could be some ingénue teen with her dark hair cropped short in a jaunty style. Her jeans were comfortably worn and a loose fitting pale blue T-shirt hung just past her waist, but the minute she raised her gaze, any perception of innocence disappeared.

He didn’t know what those
intense green eyes had seen, but it hadn’t all been nice. She was pretty and wore not a speck of makeup, because she didn’t need it.

“How’s the patient?” Tanner asked, more to be polite to White Hawk than anything
. He was careful to stay out of her personal space. She could follow a suspect with the best of them, but she got a jumpy look in her eyes sometimes when too many men surrounded her.

She cocked an eyebrow
. “It’s Nick. Need I say more?”

Dingo strolled up
. “I’m surprised he’s still here.”

That brought a chuckle from her. “He might not be if Blade hadn’t hidden his clothes and we weren’t standing guard twenty-four-seven
. At this point, we’re here only to make sure he stays put until tonight.”

When she smiled, White Hawk was striking
.

Jin was, too, even when she didn’t smile
.

Guilt slunk down Tanner’s neck at the image of Jin sitting alone, staring at him with eyes screaming accusations that he was letting her down
. She expected to be abandoned by him and he hadn’t been able to dispel that worry.

“You two going back to Atlanta?”
Tanner asked to confirm the arrangements. Sabrina wanted all of her people out of this mess, but she’d settle for getting Nick home for now.

“Right. Blade’s going with Nick to monitor him
. I’ll stay here ... if you need me,” White Hawk added.

If Tanner needed people, he’d call Sabrina after White Hawk left to keep from slighting her, because he knew White Hawk preferred to work alone
. “We’re good. Thanks, though.”

Dingo followed him into the room
.

Nick sat propped up in bed, eating ... a damned fine looking hospital meal that smelled of rich sauce and seafood
. He grinned and moved, then flinched.

“Be still,” Dingo ordered
. “And tell me that’s not Coquille St. Jacques.”

Nick’s grin widened
. “Got one of the nurses to smuggle it in, but I’m done.”

Once Tanner and Dingo were on each side of Nick and he’d pushed his tray away, Tanner asked, “How did you get intel in here when even Sabrina’s crew back home couldn’t?”

Wiping his hands on the napkin and tossing it on the tray, Nick eased back against his pillows. “Let’s just say I have an exceptional informant.”

“You knew who to call and waited until now?” Dingo asked.

“I didn’t call anyone.”

Dingo exchanged a look with Tanner before pondering his question out loud
. “Someone came in here? Past our people?”

Nick growled
. “Do you want the intel or not? What have
you
got?”

Tanner lifted a hand in a signal to Dingo that they should let it go
. Nick had been the only one to come up with intel on Margaux when she was captured and sitting in a South American jungle. Whoever he was tapping had international connections and had gained access to him when no one should have been able to pass through their security undetected.

Dingo said, “We know the people behind all this are that crazy Orion Hunter group.”

At Nick’s surprised look, Tanner added, “They were behind getting the physicists out of North Korea and we just learned that the attack is actually a cloud seeding with poisonous particles.”  Tanner explained what Jin had told them.

Nick grunted
. “Now the location makes sense. Their target is Ogallala Aquifer. But they’re after the woman we brought, too. My contact says there’s a two-million-dollar bounty for her if she’s captured and the insinuation was that the person behind the bounty is Chinese with powerful political connections. From what my resource says, if the Chinese guy doesn’t get her through the bounty, he’ll have her deported for crimes against his government. If the second contract is to kill her, then the Orion Hunters don’t want her to land in anyone else’s hands.”

And you left her alone at the hotel.

Fuck. Tanner’s pulse shot into overdrive at the thought of anyone harming Jin. She’d handled the attack earlier today, but money like that brought out heavy-duty professionals. Tanner shut down his need to tear out of there and get back where he could watch over her. His team needed him fully on board to save his country, regardless of his own feelings.

Dingo slouched, tapping a finger on Nick’s bed
. “I wonder just who this Jin is and why one woman is so important,” he mused.

Because Jin isn’t just any woman, dammit.
But that was Tanner’s emotions weighing in, not his objective mission brain.

Didn’t matter. He could explain why any man would want her
. God knows, Tanner had since the minute he stared into her eyes, but the people after Jin wanted her for something else entirely.

Those same people would make that attack this morning look like a sparring session. Tanner’s heart was beating so fast he should be setting off Nick’s machines
.  

Nick scrunched his forehead
. “Why the hell wasn’t she part of the original extraction if she’s so valuable? But if she’s not part of the seeding attack, why should we care?”

“Because if we don’t, they’ll kill her,” Tanner growled.

Nick and Dingo stopped focusing on the upcoming attack and turned to him. Nick spoke first. “Getting attached to her can’t end well.”

Dingo didn’t second that verbally, but his eyes said Tanner should have kept that to himself
.

Damage control time
. Tanner said, “I’m not attached. She’s an asset right now we need to keep alive.”

“So,” Dingo started and scratched his nose
. “We should find a secure place and put her in lockdown.”

“No.”  Shit
. Said that too fast, too. “Let’s just get out to Ogallala and start hunting for her sister.”

But Dingo wasn’t ready to give it up
. “What are you going to tell Sabrina about how we came up with all this intel?”

Tanner ran both hands over his face
. “Hell, I don’t know. We’ll tell her we beat it out of those three Koreans who killed the doctor.”

That damn Nick grinned
. “Good luck with that. Sabrina didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday, to coin one of your country sayings. Better to tell her about Jin before Sabrina calls you to ask, or sends a team to pick her up.”

Tanner hated to admit Nick was right
. “When Sabrina does start asking questions, you can explain how you got the strike location while in a hospital.”

Nick’s grin vanished and he grumbled something about how they should appreciate getting free
intel.

Dingo grabbed his head
. “Sabrina’s going to castrate all of us as soon as she finds out we’ve kept her out of the loop.”

Nick held up his hands
. “I wasn’t part of that.”

Tanner leaned down
. “You are now.”

“You could keep Sabrina off all our backs right now by handing Jin over to her,” Nick suggested
. “Besides, that would put Jin somewhere safe. No one would get to her in the underground living quarters at Slye Temp.”

“He’s got a point, mate,” Dingo added.

A damn good one from everyone’s perspective except Jin’s.

She would never forgive Tanner.