Kiss the Enemy (Slye Temp) (3 page)

No matter what Margaux said, no one was going to believe that tonight hadn’t been about retribution for Nanci’s death. And, to be honest, that was her own fault for not talking to Sabrina and letting her know that she’d let it go.

Margaux had actually
never
been after vengeance so much as trying to quiet the voice in her head that accused her of doing nothing as Nanci died alone. She had to explain to Sabrina. “Nanci transferred here to help on
our
case. I don’t regret asking her, because we saved Ryder from a murder rap, but I pushed her to do things that went against her oath as an FBI agent. She did all that because—” 
Because she loved me like a sister.
She took a breath. She never let her emotions show. Ever. In a firmer voice, she said, “Nanci did everything I asked, even when it reached the gray area of her job and all because
I
asked her to. She got a bullet between the eyes for it and I’m having a hard time getting past the helpless feeling of doing nothing.”

“I haven’t forgotten her sacrifice and neither has the team.”

Margaux heard the compassion, but also a hard line in Sabrina’s voice. “I know you’ve been patient and given me space, Sabrina. I’m telling you the truth that I let it all go earlier this past week. I swear to you I did not mislead you tonight.”

Sabrina shook her head with disbelief. “But you didn’t tell me that you
suspected
the Banker would be at this meeting, did you? Then we break up a drug operation and there isn’t the first terrorist involved.”

Margaux had no idea how this could have happened. She’d gone over it in her mind a hundred times already. She’d also tried calling and texting Snake Eyes, but he hadn’t returned her WTF text messages.

Sabrina let out a sigh loaded with disappointment. “The problem is that you’ve lost the ability to think beyond any tip on the Banker, no matter how slim.”

Margaux seethed over the accusation, but this was the time to stop arguing and start putting out fires. “I hear you. And in hindsight, I can see how you think that.” Only if she wore Coke-bottle glasses, but this was her mess. She’d accept responsibility. “How bad is it with the DEA?”

“FUBAR, but I made a call I save as a Get-Out-Of-Deep-Shit-Free card and agreed to comp the DEA two missions ... regardless of the details.”

Ah, hell, that sucked. Sabrina was judicious when it came to accepting or declining government jobs. Now she’d not only have to run an operation for free, but take ops that she might otherwise pass on.

If Sabrina could do that, Margaux could grovel.

“Sorry, Sabrina. I mean it. I’ll do whatever you want whenever you need it for
free
until that’s paid off.”  Margaux wasn’t wealthy by any standard, but she had no life beyond being an operative for Sabrina and saved every penny. She could afford to go without pay for a while.

“You don’t understand, Duke. I can’t fix this, not this time.”

Margaux had come to recognize that slight variation of anger in Sabrina’s voice as concern. “I’ll disappear.”

“Really. Then what? You’ll eventually have to tell someone the truth because your fingerprints aren’t in the system and you have no identity other than the one with Slye Temp. The days of easy cash for legitimate work are gone. Once someone figures out you’re hiding they’ll either sell you out to law enforcement or to—”

Margaux held up her hand. “I know the risks, but I brought this on myself.”

Sabrina’s gaze held something she was hesitating to say. “I made a deal with you that I’d protect your secret, but only as long as you stayed on the straight and narrow with me.”

The first hint of true terror stirred in Margaux’s chest. “I have. I’ve been on the right side of the law the entire time with you.”

“You don’t understand. You’ve hidden in plain sight as one of my people. The DEA agent you took to the ground tonight will be demanding your head. If all of a sudden you’re no longer on my team, someone will put two and two together. I could lie to them for three or four months, tell them you’re off on a mission, but eventually it would catch up with me and that would destroy the trust I’ve earned. That would be the end of my teams.”

“What are you saying, Sabrina?”

“That the safest place for you might be in the WITSEC program.”

Margaux couldn’t speak for a moment past her shock. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I go there and I’ll be in lock down or I’ll end up dead.” 

“Not if we create a new identity and I pull some strings to get you in the system as a witness on a top secret case.”

Margaux argued, “If the Feds don’t know I’m the one who called in the bombing in Arkansas six years ago, they won’t know to watch for Lonnie’s father.” The man had led a group of anarchists who were fueled by rage against the government. Lonnie had said he wanted to build a better world, and after the one Margaux had grown up in that sounded wonderful … until she found out the truth about their “freedom” group. When she’d balked, Lonnie had shown her just how little her love and her life meant. One bomb had gone off, and the only reason more people hadn’t died was because Lonnie and his father’s men had left her for dead.

She’d called in time to prevent detonation of the other bombs.

Sabrina had been the one to find her.

Margaux pointed out what she saw as obvious. “If I go into WITSEC and end up working a normal job out in the open, Lonnie’s father will eventually find me and make me pay for his son’s death. And If I tell the Feds the truth about being Lonnie’s girlfriend, they’ll lock me up with crap about it being for my safety  and I’ll never be free.”

Her dad had been a single parent and a mean bastard. He’d constantly pointed out how her two brothers were
something
because they played football and she was
nothing
because she barely pulled average grades in school. One brother killed a person while driving drunk and the other one got a girl pregnant then disappeared. Yeah, they were something. Then Lonnie came along and convinced Margaux she was special, that together they could change the world.

He’d only changed her world and in ways she shuddered to remember.

Sabrina said, “I’ve thought about the Feds and Lonnie’s father. Give me time to work something out.”

No way would Margaux put her life in the hands of law enforcement, not even WITSEC. Lonnie’s father had been a policeman once, and he still had friends on the force. He’d use those resources to find her. But saying so to Sabrina now would only double the guards outside. “So I’m under house arrest until you work that out?”

Sabrina’s tight features eased, meaning she assumed Margaux was on board with waiting for a plan even if it ended up being WITSEC. “Yes. If you leave this apartment, I’ll have to report you.”

That was straight-shooter Sabrina. She didn’t try to deny that those people downstairs in surveillance cars that had been here when Margaux arrived home were around for any other reason than to insure that Margaux stayed put.

“That all?”  Margaux might not show emotion, but it was ripping her insides. Sabrina had been her one friend, the one person besides Nanci who knew how much this pitiful life meant to her.

And just how much it would cost Margaux to give it up.

Sabrina’s jaw was rigid, all business. “I’ll be in touch. I expect you to be here when I do.”

Margaux nodded. “Don’t leave town. Got it.”

“I’m not joking, Duke. Make one step outside this building and I’ll consider you rogue. Don’t leave this apartment for anything short of a fire, and go out the front windows even then.”  That was an order.

“Whatever,” Margaux muttered. She opened the door but when Sabrina stepped through, Margaux said, “Wait.”

Sabrina stopped. “Yes?”

“Tell the team thanks for everything and—”  Margaux hated to ask for anything, but she was asking now. “
Please
... tell them that I told you exactly what I knew to be true. I would never hold back information pertinent to a mission or play games with the team.”

“I’ll tell them.”  But from Sabrina’s tone, she didn’t expect many to accept that.

When Sabrina left, Margaux stepped over to peer out the opening between the blinds and her window.

Sabrina drove off in her Hummer. The dark sedan still parked outside appeared to hold one male and one female, but Margaux didn’t recognize either one.

How many others had Sabrina ordered to watch her?

Margaux’s burner cell phone finally buzzed. Only one person should be calling. She answered, “What the fuck was tonight about and where the hell have you been?”

“Calm down,” Snake Eyes growled in a low voice that warned he was on edge, too. “I just found out the cops busted the place. What the hell happened?”

Snake Eyes thought she was a hired assassin who did an occasional snatch job, because she let him think that. It was her persona, to be part of the criminal world. For that reason, she had to say, “What
happened
? You screwed me. You said it was a payoff for a terrorist attack going down in Atlanta to-
day
! Not a fucking drug deal.”

“I got screwed, too, but this is as much your fault as mine.”

She wanted her gun. “How do you see that?”

“If you’ll calm down and kick the attitude to the curb, I’ll explain, Duke,” he said, using her street moniker The Duke, but neither Margaux nor Duke were the names on her real birth certificate, or on her death certificate.

“
This!
” She pointed a finger at herself even though he couldn’t see it. “Is not attitude. This is pissed beyond sanity. Tell me something worth hearing or I’m hanging up so I can hunt you down.”  False threat, but only until she was mobile again.

“You hang up and we both die. We have to move fast or we’ll lose your Banker.”

How could her heart jump with hope after what had happened tonight? She really was a nut case if she got sucked into this again. “Forget it, Snake Eyes. I already told you that I’m done with that bastard. He’s cost me more than I’ll ever recover.”

“Bull. Shit. You aren’t bailing on me now. Not after the shitstorm you’ve dragged me into.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were
both
set up. I heard from an associate that the Banker caught wind of me hunting for him.”

“How’d you let that happen?”  She didn’t work with just any informant. Snake Eyes had been tough to bring to the table the first year she’d found out about him. He had to have far-reaching resources for some of the things he’d handed her, which was why she’d been surprised that the Banker had been so tough to find at first.

“I assure you, Duke, that I intend to find out where the breakdown in my network is, but I have to be breathing to make that happen. Back to our problem, and it is
ours
to fix. The contact who passed the information for tonight’s meeting was double-tapped at close range while the meeting was going on. Cost me a significant amount of money to discover I was fed bad intel on purpose.”

“Why?”“To find out who’s been hunting the Banker. That would be me and you.”

Margaux turned and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. She propped her elbow on her bent knee and gripped her forehead. Talk about a sucky night. “If that’s the case, how is it that you’re still alive?”

“I wouldn’t have survived this long if I didn’t have friends in this business. We watch each other’s backs. So the hunter is now the hunted. You have to take out the Banker before he gets to you, Duke.”

“He won’t find me.”  She started mentally going over everything she’d stashed just in case she ever had to make a run for it alone. She had another ID and plenty of cash, but walking out of this apartment would destroy the trust Sabrina had placed in her.

“Oh, he’ll find you,” Snake Eyes said without hesitation. “I can disappear, but eventually someone will give me up for the right price. From what I understand, the Banker has more than enough. If he finds me, he finds you. I have two choices. I either help you get him or I go to him right now and give him everything on you.”

“What’s stopping you from going to him?” she asked, curious to know what he’d say.

“Because I’m not stupid enough to think he won’t send someone to kill me once he has what he needs from me.” Snake Eyes added, “You strike me as a loner, but know this. As I understand it, the Banker will not just hunt us down, he’ll go after everyone we’ve ever known.”

The ramifications hit her in the solar plexus. She could sit here like a goat tied to a stick for slaughter, or she could run. But either way, the Banker would go after Sabrina and the rest of the team.

She had to call Sabrina.

And say what?
That she’d gotten new intel and if Sabrina didn’t turn Margaux loose that Sabrina and the team would be at risk.

Oh, yeah, that would fly.
Not.

Sabrina would think Margaux was making a last-ditch run at freedom. If Margaux brought everyone in on this, there would be no way to shield them from the Banker. Every person on Sabrina’s team was exceptional and capable of handling a threat, but once the Banker discovered any connection between Margaux and Slye Temp, he had the resources to wipe all of them from the face of the earth.

At this point, there was no reason for the Banker to target Sabrina and the team unless Margaux brought them in on this. That wasn’t happening.

No one else was dying because of her mistakes.

“Duke?”

“I’m here. How the hell am I supposed to get to the Banker if I can’t find him?” Successful Assassin 101: must have target.

“I’ve been very busy tonight and put the full power of my resources on this. I have a hard lead on him.”

Her heart double-thumped at the words she’d been waiting to hear from Snake Eyes for eight months. “How could you have it now?”

“I received a call from my contact’s phone
after
I found out he was dead. The person calling was my contact’s people. They’re pissed and threatened to come after me until I told them the whole score about being set up.”

“You mention me?”

“I don’t share information without an incentive and they had no reason to ask about you.”  He kept his voice down. “Evidently, my contact was the brother of a powerful man in New York who immigrated from Turkey. He wants whoever was responsible for offing his brother, and he has impressive resources.”