Fatal Honor: Shadow Force International (17 page)

“What’s that?” she half whispered, half moaned. “Is that your phone?”

He trailed his lips up higher. “Don’t worry about it,” he said against her soft, smooth skin.

Her fingernails scraped against his scalp, her fingers tugging his hair, encouraging his lips to move even higher. “What if it’s your friend? What if he’s in trouble?”

Shit, Jax. She could be right. Pausing in his ministrations, he laid his forehead against the top of her right thigh, dug his phone out. Caller ID told him it wasn’t Jaxon, but it
was
important.

Straightening, he still kept his body looming over Charlotte so she didn’t get any ideas he was done with her. Far from it. “Don’t move,” he said to her as he punched the accept button and glanced out the nearby window. The landscape beyond the plane looked the same. Empty. “Yo. What’s up?” he said into his phone.

Beatrice—thank God—was her normal self. No small talk; all business. “Rory and I found something. Check your messages.”

Miles clicked over to his message app, saw a grainy, monochrome photo that meant nothing to him. Charlotte was giving him a curious stare. “What is it?”

“Can you see it?” Beatrice said in his ear. “Security camera at the safe house caught it.”

He did another scan of the photo. Grey mass with a blob here and there was all he saw. Charlotte sat up, forcing him to move back. “Caught what exactly?”

“Upper left-hand corner. See the darker mass in the fog?”

A third look at the photo. This time, Charlotte leaned forward, scanning the photo as well as she located her shirt and tugged it on with one hand and hit the speaker button with her other.

Multitasking. She’d always been good at it. He smiled as he remembered just how good she was at it in bed.

Which made annoyance at the current interruption burn like acid under his skin. “Looks like a bird,” he said to Beatrice. “Why do I care?”

“It’s a drone.”

Charlotte’s eyes snapped to his. “A drone?” she said, grabbing her jeans from the ground.

Beatrice didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, Agent Carstons. We believe it followed you from the house. Any clue who might have sent it?”

“No.” Charlotte shook her head even though Beatrice couldn’t see it. She pulled up her jeans and zipped them and Miles wanted to punch the table. “Nicolae, I guess. He traded in them on occasion, but I never knew him to use one.”

A squeak from Beatrice’s chair filtered through the phone. “I don’t believe it was Nicolae Bourean. Whoever used this drone to track you had to be on your tail at the safe house. They’re the ones who notified MI6 where you were headed.”

“Nicolae’s the one who embedded a tracking chip in her back,” Miles argued. “That’s the only way anyone could have found us at the safe house.”

“Unless Bourean is working with MI6, Agent Carstons, I’d say there’s another player in the mix. From airport footage, we can see that the drone definitely followed you to the airport, then disappeared right before the MI6 agents showed up.”

Charlotte sank into one of the seats and stared out the window. “Nico is wanted by MI6. He would never work
with
them. Even if they cut him a deal in exchange for his help, he wouldn’t give up the chance at killing me. There’s no satisfaction in that. No revenge.”

“Then I suggest you review your contacts and friendships, Agent. Someone has betrayed you.”

The line went dead. Miles put the phone away and slid into the seat next to Charlotte. “At least we know now how MI6 found us at the airport.”

“Yeah.” She continued to stare out the window, but her mind seemed a million miles away. “You’re sure there is no other tracking device buried under my skin?”

“Positive.”

“And yet someone found us again.” She pointed out the window and Miles’ heart lurched into his chest.

A dark figured moved stealthily down the hill, disappearing behind a tree.

“Damn it.” He rose and checked his weapon. He should have been paying more attention. The farm was long ago abandoned, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t ever used by criminals and vagrants. Or maybe even a spy or two when they needed a place that looked deserted to hide in.

Charlotte laid a hand on his. “Are you sure it’s not Megadeth?”

“Hiding in the woods? Stay here. I’ll take care of it.”

“Bull.” Charlotte rose from her seat, grabbing her coat from behind her. “We do this together.”

Two minutes ago, he’d had her on her on her back, nearly naked. Now she wanted to jump into the line of fire with him. “I don’t think you understand how this works.
I’m
protecting
you
. Now sit tight.”

White teeth flashed in the shadows at him and he heard the click of her gun’s magazine snapping into place. “I’ve never had a partner before. This could be fun.”

Jesus
. He was so screwed. “Charlotte…”

“Don’t
Charlotte
me. I’m a trained operative, not some rich housewife who can’t hold her own against an abusive husband. We’re partners in this. Now get moving before that guy out there ambushes us.”

Defeat wasn’t in his vocabulary.
This is only a concession
. “Stay close and watch my six.”

There was a teasing note to her voice. Excitement too. “You think
you’re
taking the lead on this?”

Screwed, yessiree. He was one-hundred percent screwed. “Either that, or you sit your sweet ass back down in that seat. You’re a Rock Star client, operative or not, and I’m your bodyguard. Take it or leave it, Carstons.”

Her hand found his ass and gave one cheek a little squeeze. “Oh, I’m taking it,” she said, her presence suddenly warm against his backside. “Lead the way, bodyguard.”

Washington, D.C.

B
EATRICE
R
EESE
S
TARED
at the paper file on Charlotte Carstons and tapped her pen on her blotter. Paper files were so last millennium, but the SFI computer system was undergoing a complete virus scan like it did every Wednesday evening, and she preferred not to fight with her computer while the scan ran in the background. Rory assured her the scan didn’t slow down her computer or the normal office intranet, but Beatrice didn’t believe him.

Most places ran their full system scans in the middle of the night when no one was around. At SFI headquarters, there were always staff around. Much of their communication often happened at night when their Rock Star clients were more active, as were the criminals Shadow Force teams hunted.

Granted, several of her paramilitary teams were out of the country and in different time zones, but her and Rory’s analysis of peak times confirmed that Wednesday evenings between five and eight p.m. EST were usually quite dead and the opportune time for him to babysit the scan. Beatrice relied on logic, data, facts. She still didn’t understand why that particular time was so slow every week.

Security wasn’t just important at SFI, it was at the top of the list. Client safety was a close second. Beatrice preached it daily to her staff and employees. Security and safety—sides of the same coin.

And that’s why she was particularly worried about Miles Duncan.

Charlotte Carstons had a red X on her back. A target. Not just from a Romanian crime lord, but also by her employer. A bad combination if Beatrice had ever seen one. Since she had once been hunted by her own employer—the U.S. government—she knew all about that particular scenario. Things had been ugly for a while, but she’d lucked out. The assassin sent to kill her wanted out of the termination business…and he’d turned to her for help.

That’s why Rory was now on the SFI payroll.

Carstons, however, wasn’t going to get that lucky. Even if Beatrice found a way to get MI6 to back off—and she did have her ways—there was still Nicolae Bourean to deal with.

One problem at a time
. She picked up her phone and buzzed Connor, her assistant. “Get Zeb Riceman on the line for me, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A minute later, Zeb’s rough, growly voice came over the line. “Whatcha want, girlie? I’m eatin’ dinner.”

Hmm. Maybe that accounted for one variable regarding the slow time in her analysis. “Do you remember an operative named CB Norris? George W. era. Left the CIA eleven months and thirteen days after 9/11.”

She heard chewing, then Zeb sipping liquid. A former client, Savanna Bunkett, had told Beatrice the man had a fondness for strawberry pop and top shelf vodka.

“Norris?” Zeb growled. “Haven’t heard that name in awhile. Righteous SOB. We crossed paths but not until he was high up in the Agency’s ranks. He put together a couple of scrimmage runs into the hills of Afghanistan looking for bin Laden. I had the pleasure of deciphering intel his team uncovered, which was a bunch of nothin’.”

“I haven’t yet confirmed this, but it appears Mr. Norris may be involved in a current security mission SFI is investigating in Romania. Norris is running agents for MI6 and one of those agents is now our client. Is there anything pertinent you can tell me about the man? Perhaps why he was fired from the Agency?”

“Officially, the CIA said he retired and went to live in London. In certain circles I was kin to, they claim he got his ass booted after he said some nasty things to his commander-in-chief. He was told none-to-politely to take his opinions and his traitorous mouth and find a new country to call home. He was too smart and dedicated for his own good. He knew bin Laden was a serious threat to America before bin Laden knew it himself. I read a few of his missives back in the day, before 9/11.”

“And?”

“I thought he was crazy, just like everybody else who read ’em.”

Power could make a man stronger, bolder, more confident. It could open doors and give him deep reserves of leverage. Power was the strongest motivator Beatrice had seen in D.C. and the philosophers were accurate: it always corrupted.

What she’d learned since becoming pregnant was that true power had nothing to do with politics or ambition. Nothing to do with leverage, blackmail, or violence.

Creation, not destruction, was true power. Growing a child inside you, creating a company that took care of your employees and protected innocent people from the corrupt power mongers running the country, that was true power.

“When the towers fell and it was revealed bin Laden was behind it,” Beatrice said, “Norris felt vindicated.”

“Wouldn’t you? He saw himself on a personal mission to go after that asshole and he thought with all of his previous intel gathering and predictions, he should be a shoo-in for a top slot in the intelligence world. He might have made it, too, if he’d played his cards right and been patient. He knew as well as anyone that Washington moves as slow as a snail, even when we’re under attack.”

“Why join MI6? They don’t seem to appreciate his brilliance and skills any more than the U.S. did if he’s stuck in Romania running operatives and assets. If he wanted fame and glory, he missed the jackpot.”

“Rings true.” A napkin rustled in the background. “Let me do some digging. Guy’s got to have an ulterior motive.”

“I would appreciate learning anything you find out.”

They said their goodbyes and Beatrice rocked back and forth in her chair, rubbing her still-growing belly. Her analytical mind knew Miles could handle himself in any circumstance. He’d already proved that several times in the past few months. Even with his ankle injury, the Navy had offered him a position training SEALs. He’d rejected the offer and accepted hers instead. A quiet soldier, he’d learned the value of his own freedom. His perspective about what was important to him had shifted.

Love could do that.

Beatrice had known about the intensive searches Miles had done on Agent Carstons from the moment he’d come to work for the Rock Stars. As he transitioned to the paramilitary side, she’d suspected that was the biggest reason he’d signed on with SFI—he knew they had leading technology, sources for top-secret intelligence, a database of identities that rivaled everything Homeland, the FBI, and Interpol put together had, and a team that would have his back. The men working for SFI, whether bodyguards or full-blown paramilitary soldiers—might remind Duncan of his SEAL brothers who’d died in the Carpathian Mountains, but not nearly as much as seeing fresh, new recruits at the Naval Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado would have every day.

She’d helped him out here and there with his searches, but they’d lead to unwanted attention. At that point, she’d told him to stand down.

She had a soft spot for him—unusual for her. Her emotional quotient had always had a deficit due to her high IQ and she preferred not getting personally attached to the men who worked for SFI. In reality, she
did
care about each and every one of them—it wasn’t that she was a cold-hearted bitch. She was loyal to them to a fault because of her own personal code of ethics.

But Miles reminded her of her husband, Callan Reese. A SEAL who’d lost his fellow teammates on a mission and lived to tell about it. The survivor’s guilt still ate at him. He often spent hours in the gym beating on a punching bag or running miles and miles of D.C. landscapes in the pre-dawn hours. When she looked in Miles Duncan’s eyes, she saw the same ghosts haunting him. The same questions the Fates would never answer. Why him? Why did he survive when the others died?