Defender (5 page)

The four aviators he’d met today could make or break his mission: an air force team from a small dark ops test squadron only a select few even knew existed. The shit these avionics pioneers created and flew was so damn spooky, even their own wives didn’t know where they went or what they did with aircraft, weaponry, defense, surveillance, and sensors that blew even his mind. They tried it all. Most of the technology they used would never be known to the world.

They reported only to the air force chief of staff.

But for the next week, at least, they would be reporting to him. He needed their “toys.” He just hoped they weren’t so accustomed to running rogue they couldn’t pull with the rest of the team in a crunch. Another reason he preferred to depend only on himself.

Savoring this rare solitary moment, Nunez pulled out his secure reading tablet and inserted his ID CAC—common access card—into a slot on the top and tapped in his code. The screen lit up secure green while the CV-22 engines droned. He began reviewing reports and intelligence assessments he would need before stepping on the streets of Turkey as Miguel Carvalho, a bored banking heir from Spain. He had three bars on his target list near the NATO base. All three had been the last known site for soldiers who’d later disappeared.

Chatter from the crew over his headset distantly registered in his brain as he worked. Jimmy Gage’s flat midwestern accent growled low.

“If it was a bomb on the boat, who was the target? I find that so much more pertinent than who did it.”

Vapor’s clipped Chicago tones interrupted. “And why would that be more interesting, my friend? Is there something on that boat that intrigues you, the busty cage dancer, perhaps?”

“Backup singer,” Gage snapped.

Half smiling, Nunez scrolled through the latest update on his data, searching for . . . he wasn’t sure what. But he would feel it when he saw it. He needed to study every aspect of the three locales, because life threw enough surprises his way on its own.

Smooth strode past him in the cargo hold, pressing a hand to his headset. “I hope no one associated with the USO group is involved.”

Vapor keyed up the mic. “I say there is no way the USO babes are involved in anything. Where would they hide weapons in those skimpy outfits? Although, once they get wet, those costumes are as dangerous as a stun gun. Wouldn’t you say, Jimmy?”

The squadron commander cleared his throat. “I have a better question. How about we pay attention to flying this airplane? What do you think about that?”

Nunez shot a quick look at the women working to repair their hair and makeup while dealing with the constraints of their seats. At least they couldn’t hear what was being said. He tuned out the voices and focused on work.

He thumbed the track ball down, down, down through the maze of data. Paused. Scrolled back up a couple of pages and stopped. Went back and read the list of employees on that fourth bar again.

Anya Surac.

He knew he hadn’t seen it before. Still, something about it niggled at him. He scanned through the list of all the bars again, even ones farther up in northern Turkey, looking for . . .

Then he saw it.
Marta
A. Surac. She was on their persons of interest list, given that she owned establishments in two of the areas where American service members had gone missing. But so did a lot of other investors.

The bar where this Anya worked was a couple of kilometers farther away from the NATO air base than some others on his list but still within his radius of interest. He stared at the display so long his labyrinth screen saver popped up. An image of a tile meditation path on a cathedral floor bounced around the monitor in time with his ping-ponging thoughts.

The common last name could be coincidental. One woman owned a bar, another with the same surname worked as a waitress in another bar, both in Turkey. It was possible in a country that large, but it was still worth investigating more on this Anya Surac.

Could be a relative. Could be no connection at all.

Or it could be the same person.

Regardless, as Miguel Carvalho he would be meeting this Marta-Anya Surac—whoever she really was—very soon.

The speakers in the back of the plane hummed to life with instructions to prepare for landing. Nunez powered down his computer and stowed it away. Eyes closing, he rested his back, thunking against metal vibrating from the engine drone.

In the time it took the plane to touch down, Mike Nunez disappeared and became Miguel Carvalho.

FOUR

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, TURKEY

Chloe mentally prepped for her next show backstage while the moon outside the open hangar door competed with the dome of runway lights. She held her arms up while a costume mistress repaired a loose string of sequins.

They’d spent most of the day sleeping in their new quarters at the NATO base in southern Turkey, east of Adana, in the middle of farmland, farmland, and more farmland that they’d flown over in Jimmy Gage’s airplane. She still couldn’t believe the luck. Or bad luck rather.

After the performance on the aircraft carrier, she’d found someone else to locate the ship’s doctor and felt quite proud of herself for avoiding more conflict with Jimmy. Then she’d been escorted back to Jimmy Gage’s plane, which made total sense now that she thought about it, since their boat had blown up. Still, she’d managed to avoid seeing him for the whole flight.

Or had he been avoiding her?

And why was she still ruminating over one bristly exchange? Starting now, she was done thinking about Jimmy Gage and instead focusing on the scheduling changes.

The USO cast and crew wouldn’t be staying in the historic accommodations in nearby Adana after all. They would be lodging on base where their security could be better monitored. After all, they’d been reassured, the Turkish Armed Forces were the second largest in NATO, after the U.S.

In all likelihood, the boat had simply suffered a regrettable malfunction. However, extra precautions needed to be made, including delaying their departure to Iraq.

Huge—freaking huge—military planes roared overhead, almost drowning out the comedian onstage. Her info packet told her that C-17s transported cargo in and out of Iraq. One of the crews originally from South Carolina would be taking the USO troupe the rest of the way, once they received the security thumbs-up. A seven-day tour now stretched to at least ten days. One television comic had already begged off the remainder of the tour, citing scheduling conflicts.

A double fence surrounded the base with American guards on the inside and Turkish guards on the outside. Even this far from an obvious threat, they prepared for anything. Normal? Or had the boat incident propelled the military to beef up the security force? And if so, that made Jimmy’s words about the danger in this area sting all the more.

Livia Cicero hooked arms with her just offstage while the comic finished up his routine. “
Mia cara
, you need to relax. We are all okay. Threats on our lives are part of show business. I’m actually more concerned about the acoustical nightmare of performing in that metal warehouse.”

“It’s called a hangar. And thanks, but you’re not helping.” Chloe inched closer to accommodate the lighting guys hoisting heavy equipment to make way for the next act while the stage manager, Greg, called directions into his headset.

“I had this stalker once who was obsessed with collecting my leftover latte cups and matching my lipstick shades.” She shuddered, gathering her sleek black hair into a barrette. “I don’t even want to think about what he did with all those tubes of Pouty Pink the police found on him.”

Chloe admired the woman’s gutsy ability to shrug off something so scary. “Definitely creepy. But honestly, I’m over what happened earlier.” Mostly, anyway. It was probably just mechanical failure, but she still wouldn’t be opening any unmarked packages. “It’s the performing part. It wasn’t as easy as I expected on the aircraft carrier. I have a performance background from childhood, so it should have been a cakewalk.”

“It is . . . how do you say it?” She gestured with long fingers tipped by a French manicure that had somehow survived their impromptu swim yesterday. “Apples and pears.”

“Apples and oranges.”

“Right. Different fruits, whatever.” She tapped her Roman nose. “My point is that this is a different arena, and you are a bit more out there physically than when it is just your music. Loosen up. You will find the audience feeds you.”

“I understand that in theory, but I have always lost myself in my music. It became more of a trancelike experience.” She didn’t want to mention that, yes, she thought there was a world of difference between conducting a symphony and strutting her badonkadonk.

“Ah, you had your back to the audience or your face buried in sheet music while you immersed yourself in the sounds, whereas this type of performing requires eye contact.” Livia fluttered her lashes at a passing security guard wearing camo and carrying a big-butt gun slung over his shoulder.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Apparently her badonkadonk had been on display after all. “You could have a point. I tried to look at the horizon, and it didn’t work for me.”

“Because you were not connecting with people and their emotions. Listen to that.” She tipped her face, her lashes fluttering closed as the crowd applauded for the comedian bowing his way offstage. Her eyes slowly opened. “For now, choose one person. That will feel less overwhelming until you are more comfortable scanning the crowd.”

Winking as she passed, Livia sprinted onstage to
her
applause and whistles.

This show versus her musical world? Definitely apples and pears. Because best she could recall, performances of Beethoven’s greatest hits usually didn’t receive catcalls.

Her cue came from the stage manager she’d only met the day before on the aircraft carrier. Chloe strode out with the other two backup singers and a line of dancers, waving and smiling until she felt creases forming in the caked makeup. Every swish of her costume around her upper thighs reminded her of how much she had on display.

She jogged to her microphone, scanning the crowd, searching the faces for one to lock onto that would help her zone out the rest. A nice, pimply faced eighteen-year-old seaman would remind her of the patriotic service she offered here. After all, she had a debt to repay.

Her gaze gravitated toward the front and a small patch of uniforms that differed from the rest. The cluster of solid tan took shape into aviators in desert flight suits.
His
crew.

They hadn’t left.

The music swelled around her with a comforting familiarity. Stage lights bathed her in soothing heat.

Brown eyes hit her with something hotter.

Now that that the sun had set, Jimmy Gage kept his sunglasses hooked in the neck of his flight suit. She could have sworn he seemed to be watching her intently from three rows back with his applauding buddies. Or maybe she’d indulged in some subconscious wishful thinking, because she was still pissed off at him and liked the idea that she hadn’t been so easily dismissed after all.

Of course now that she thought about it, pissed off could be channeled into fired up, which would infuse energy into her performance. Yep, she’d found her face. Definitely not pimply or eighteen, but at least she didn’t have to worry about him getting the wrong idea and asking for her phone number.

The first song segued into the second, and wow, Livia was right, the rest of the world did fade away. Chloe leaned in closer to the microphone. And no, damn it, the sensation had nothing to do with
who
she stared at. For that matter, looking at
him
made it all the easier to pour herself into the forget-his-ass tune spinning up.

The jaunty beat of the music drew her in. The grinding emotions of the melody and lyrics pumped through her veins as clearly as across her vocal chords. Her college degrees may have been in piano performance and orchestral conducting, but she’d taken and enjoyed her fair share of voice classes. Somewhere along the line, she’d forgotten the joy of this part of her career.

A few more stanzas, and she would be able to stare at Jimmy Gage without even really seeing him at all, not that he was smiling anyway. Or even looking at her.

His attention seemed to be firmly planted on the guy a row ahead of him. A guy who was pushing through to the next row, closer to the front, with no signs of stopping. Her heart pounded harder than the percussion section.

She forced herself not to miss a beat, even as Jimmy plowed forward to grab the collar of the man trying to climb onstage.

* THE OASIS NIGHTCLUB, ADANA, TURKEY

Nunez climbed the final three steps into the five-star nightclub toward the door host. “
Hola, mi amigo
,” he said only to receive a blank look, so he swapped to accented English. “How are you, my friend?”

The muscle-bound snob in a suit as slick as his pulled-back hair and fedora assessed him with a dismissive sniff. No doubt calculating the make and cost of his Canali suit and Rolex. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, you may.” Nunez fiddled with a gold cuff link, which actually housed a hidden camera that recorded movies complete with sound to a flash drive hidden inside his jacket liner. The door dude also wore a coat in spite of the warm weather. Seemed everyone had something to hide tonight.

Nunez casually strolled around the portico for a better shot of the doorman’s face beneath the hat. “I was hoping to have a good raki tonight, and I heard this was the place.”

The door host eyed the Versace necktie and hesitated an instant before sniffing again. “Sorry, the club is full. I can’t let you in until some people leave.”

Nunez reached for his money clip with a wad of lira and peeled off one at a time until he saw the glint in the overpaid fascist’s eyes.

He palmed them and offered his hand. “Could you take another look and see if perhaps you’ve miscounted the crowd?”

The ponytailed guard pocketed the cash and opened the door with another
sniff, sniff
. Probably a cokehead. “Have a nice time, sir, and be careful with your raki. It is tough on the uninitiated.”

Nunez nodded and entered the smoky bar.

He angled sideways to avoid the couple making out against the wall by the coat check station. No morals police here.

Turkey was a democratic, secular, constitutional republic. While 99 percent of the population was Muslim, the country adhered to its secular makeup, which included banning by law head cover in government buildings, schools, and universities, for both males and females. And the scantily clad ladies here bore that out.

The secular slant of the government also allowed for free-flowing alcohol, a freedom being exercised to the fullest tonight, given the sound of clinking glasses mingling with the techno beat of European rock.

Of the bars on his list, he’d opted for Miguel Carvalho to start with the one employing the mystery woman, a decision reinforced by how little information existed on her and the fact that so far none of the other agents on the ground had been able to locate a second woman with a similar name. He’d only been able to find one grainy photo on file of Marta A. Surac in an old case file looking into drug trafficking. Given the date on the photo and the woman’s appearance, she must be in her forties. Not much to go on, but something at least.

He swept past the red velvet drapes into the main barroom, ignoring the avaricious female eyes checking out the new meat. He was here for one particular woman.

The low-lying cloud of smoke mixed with too many colognes hit him in a wave that lured him deeper into this world of excesses. Tables spread across half the space. Luminaires cast shadows over faces he needed to record. He made his way over the packed dance floor vibrating from frenetic bodies and overloud music.

A brass barstool gave him the best vantage point to peruse the room and begin spreading his cash like carrion to draw the vultures. He checked out a steady stream of waitresses with plunging silk necklines defying gravity to stay in place.

Eleven and a half minutes in, he spotted a possible Marta-Anya match just as the DJ dimmed the lights and spun up a Livia Cicero ballad. The waitress’s long blond hair gathered back in a clasp shone like a beacon among the predominantly dark-haired locals, although her dusky skin and brown eyes with an exotic tilt hinted at a bottle of hair bleach. He tracked her progress, logging details.

Why couldn’t anyone find more than a single photo? Even other records were confusing as hell. Anya Surac here. Marta A. Surac, forty-three, reported elsewhere. She seemed to have fallen out of thin air, and there were no records of her traveling.

Odd, but not totally out of the realm of possibility. No passports were required in the EU, so she could be from any multitude of small villages that at best reported births in church records—if at all. Furthermore, if her background was shady, there could be name changes involved to further complicate matters.

The one grainy photo on file of Marta A. Surac resembled the Anya woman. In the dim lighting, she appeared to be younger than the woman in the photo, but he couldn’t be sure without a closer look.

An army lieutenant grabbed her ass. Apparently tonight
lieutenant
was Greek for “fucking moron.”

Nunez started forward.

Marta-Anya spun on her spike heel, ponytail slicing the air. Her hand flashed with a streak of metal. She stabbed a steak knife into the wooden table half an inch away from the luminaire. Slowly, precisely, she eased away and gestured to the soldier’s uneaten meal with a smile as if it were common practice to embed eating utensils in varnished mahogany.

Nunez leaned back in his chair and watched the show. The lady in red did
not
need his help.

Three other men in uniform at the table whistled and applauded. She nodded regally and strode away, no swish to her steps or the silk dress. Nothing but efficiency and speed. With those looks, her speed, and her ass—uh, sass—she no doubt raked in generous tips.

He studied her as she drew closer and her face became clearer . . . Definitely not in her forties. More like mid-twenties. He scrutinized her features for any signs of plastic surgery and found none. Adding years for a disguise was easy. Shaving years off for a disguise, however, he’d always been able to see through.

Damn.

So he was dealing with two different women. The older Surac woman who was his suspect and this younger woman who might or might not be tied in. Without question, they bore a striking resemblance to each other, even with the age difference. The similarity of names certainly upped the chances that they were related.