Mind Game (36 page)

“Jesse wanted it stopped,” Dahlia said. “He wanted proof that Billings had those professors killed, and he wanted the data back.”

“Well we certainly wouldn’t want to disappoint Jesse, not with your life at stake,” Nicolas said. There was a small note in his voice that sent alarms skittering down her spine. There was ice in his eyes and in his veins and his mouth was a merciless slash.

“I take a great deal of pride in what I do. I’d never failed before, and I wasn’t about to do so this time.” Dahlia wanted to sound calm, but to her horror, she actually sounded as if she were appeasing him and that brought her own temper flaring. Snatching her hand back, she glared at him and paced away from the suddenly smothering group. “I don’t have to explain myself to you or anyone else. I stayed to get the job done, that’s all.”
Why
did she feel she owed him any explanation at all? No wonder there was a need for a relationship manual. Men were idiots.
Supreme
idiots, and women were just as bad trying to soothe men’s egos.

Nicolas followed her, feeling a fool. He knew part of the problem was the close proximity of so many men to Dahlia. He was still fighting off the feeling of watching her slip through his fingers. Combined with his fear for her safety, he was reacting to the amplification of his own emotions by the very energy he was drawing away from his men and from Dahlia. He sighed. So much for self-discipline and control.

I’m sorry, Dahlia. I really am.

She wanted to stay angry with him. There was a form of protection in staying angry, but the aching sincerity in his voice was her downfall. She took the hand he held out to her. He drew her close to him, so close she could feel the heat of his body through the thin material of their clothing.

“I’m good at what I do, Nicolas. If there’s danger, I’m careful to keep it to a minimum. And my size is an advantage. I work at night when most people are already gone. Most of the time, I’m in and out and no one is ever the wiser.”

“Dahlia,” Kaden said, “you must have to travel. Do you fly? How do you get around the traveling aspect of your job?”

“Private plane. I always use the same pilot. He’s ex-military as well and works for the NCIS. He was a Green Beret. Most of the men I’ve met from the NCIS division were in some kind of Special Forces training.” She looked at Kaden. “That’s not normal, is it?”

“Are they GhostWalkers, Dahlia?” Kaden asked.

“I have no idea.” She shrugged lightly and then pushed a hand through her hair. “Maybe. Maybe that’s the connection between them. They all seem to know one another and are close. Max is the pilot, and when I’m with him, I never seem to have problems. We don’t talk much, so I didn’t give it a lot of thought. He’s very quiet.”

“Max who?” Kaden signaled to Tucker to bring out the satellite phone to call Lily. The more information they had the better.

“Logan Maxwell. Everyone calls him Max.” She watched as Tucker talked into the phone, relaying the information. It amazed her that Lily was on the other end. For so long she didn’t know if Lily was a figment of her imagination or if she were real. Now, she was almost afraid to believe in her.

Tucker looked at them, his expression grave. “Someone’s been trying to track us. They’re using sophisticated equipment to do it. This place might not be safe anymore.”

Dahlia felt her heart thud. None of the men looked particularly concerned. They were used to the violence in their world. She took a deep breath and tried to look unafraid. It wasn’t so much the terror of having mortar rounds fired at her, so much as the onslaught of the violent energy seeking her out in the aftermath. It seemed such a weakness in the face of the strength the other GhostWalkers possessed.

Nicolas slipped his arm around her shoulders. “How do you contact Maxwell for a ride when you’re heading out for a mission?”

“Jesse usually arranges transport, but I also call Henderson’s secretary and she arranges it for me. She gives me the location of a small field and a time. Max is always there well ahead of me and ready to take off.”

“So let’s do that. Call the secretary, what’s her name?” Kaden asked.

“Louise Charter. I’ve never met her face-to-face, but I’ve spoken numerous times with her on the phone. She’s a nice woman.”

The men exchanged a long look. Dahlia’s eyebrow shot up. “What? You aren’t going to tell me that Louise is behind all this. She’s close to sixty. She’s the widow of an FBI agent.”

“We’ll see,” Kaden said. “Let’s arrange for transport to the DC and Maryland area so we can pay a little visit to the agents. I think it would be most helpful to get to know them.”

“And dangerous,” Tucker pointed out. “If they’re GhostWalkers.”

“And if they are, where did they come from? Why haven’t we heard of them?”

“Calhoun knew about us,” Nicolas said quietly. “He recognized my name, and he didn’t bat an eye over my talking telepathically to him. He knew.”

Dahlia immediately felt the impact of the weight of their combined gazes. “Don’t be looking at me. I’d never heard of you. If Jesse knew, he didn’t say a word to me.”

“Where is the data now, Dahlia?” Nicolas asked point-blank.

“In the vault. I just moved it from one box to another. They have a very secure vault, each of their researchers has access using codes and prints and keys to sensitive materials. I didn’t have time to get it out of the building. I was afraid I’d be caught, and I wanted to safeguard it. I thought it was better to let them think I smuggled it out and go back later and get it. So I moved it.”

“How’d you get past the security?” Kaden asked.

She shrugged. “I followed them in. It wasn’t that difficult. They weren’t looking for me and I jammed the cameras. I’d been doing it on and off for days so they thought they had a glitch. No one thought to look in the shadows to see if I was following them. It was more difficult getting out than getting in.”

“So now you need to break back into the building and bring the data out before they discover they still have it,” Kaden concluded.

“That’s about it,” she agreed.

“Call the secretary and set up transport, Dahlia,” Nicolas said. “We’ll go along and make certain things run smoothly. And if we’re lucky, we’ll flush out the traitor while we’re at it.”

Dahlia shook her head. “I work alone. I can’t work with anyone else. You know that, Nicolas. It’s too dangerous.”

Kaden laughed lightly. “You obviously haven’t worked with the GhostWalkers, Dahlia. The recovery is your job. We’re just going to go along to smooth the way. Don’t worry, we work well as a unit.”

Dahlia hesitated, wondering if they were railroading her. She needed time to think things through before committing herself any deeper into the company of so many others. But somehow, in spite of her misgivings, the phone was in her hand.

“I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do,” she pointed out.

“Exactly,” Nicolas said.

The men watched Tucker as she talked to Louise Charter. He was carefully looking at the screen of his laptop. “Oh, yeah. We’re being traced, people. I’ve thrown up a couple of smoke screens, just enough to keep them thinking we aren’t on to them, but they’ll find us. We already know they have a team in the area.”

“Or what’s left of it,” Nicolas said.

“Keep talking, Dahlia, let them get a good fix on us,” Kaden advised.

Dahlia scowled at him. She was unused to taking orders and especially not used to allowing enemies to pinpoint her exact location. She was a woman of the shadows, and being in a spotlight was extraordinarily uncomfortable. She looked up at Nicolas. His wide shoulders blotted out the sunlight, so that for a moment, she saw only him. He seemed invincible, a man who would never give up, never stop. She kept chatting with Louise, talking about nothing important, yet counting every second until Tucker signaled to her.

“Henderson wasn’t available, which means he was out of the office, or he would have insisted on talking to me. Louise wanted to forward my call to him, but I declined,” she explained. “So now what?”

“Now we know someone in that office is hunting you,” Kaden said.

“I knew that already. How does that narrow it down?”

“I don’t think it’s all that easy to bug the NCIS secretary’s office and trace a call,” Kaden answered. “I’d have to say we need to look very closely at the secretary.”

For some reason, the idea that Louise could be the traitor made Dahlia feel sick. She liked Louise. Maybe she didn’t know her all that well, but she liked her, and she had contact with very few people. She was beginning to believe most of the world was made up of deceivers. Part of her wanted to remain forever in the shadows. It seemed so much safer there. Out in the open, she was so much more vulnerable. She forced a small smile. “I need a little space. While you all eat, I think I’ll take a little time for myself.” She didn’t look at Nicolas when she said it. She needed space from him as well.

Dahlia went for the roof, the safest place she could think of while she sorted things out. They had little time. Either the NCIS had traced the call to ascertain her whereabouts, or someone else had done so, someone who wanted her dead. Either way, it was more than likely they would have company very quickly. She pressed her hands to her face, forcing the air through her lungs. Her life had been turned upside down in a few short days. She’d had no real time to think, or plan. She just kept moving to stay alive. She hadn’t even been able to grieve properly for Milly or Bernadette.

She felt for the familiar comfort of the amethyst spheres in her pocket. She had to focus on the mission. Before anything else, she needed clothing. Everything she owned was gone, blown up along with her home. She’d need to use the money Jesse had stashed in the safe house for clothes. She knew the importance of blending into her surroundings.

Dahlia lifted her face to the slight breeze coming in off the water and listened to the comforting sounds of the bayou. All the while she knew a part of her was waiting for Nicolas to come to her, and that frightened her more than the coming trouble. Music drifted up to her, cheery, upbeat strains of reggae. Gator began to sing. She watched as he pulled out a grill and began to prepare for a barbecue. It was strange to sit up on a roof and think that she might actually be part of something like a backyard barbecue.

Dahlia watched the men gather around Gator as he drew the outline of the small island in the dirt beside the grill with a long stick. Gator drew in the shoreline and trees. Nicolas stepped up to study it. Dahlia strained to hear them over the music. None of them seemed to care whether she heard or not as they planned what appeared to be a defense against an invasion.

“We’ll want to know where they’re going to come in. Gator, you know the island best, as well as the terrain. Let’s choose our spot and direct them to an appropriate landing area,” Nicolas instructed. He glanced up at Dahlia and winked.

Somehow, under the circumstances, she didn’t find it all that reassuring.

“Away from the cabin,” Gator said. “We’ll have to block off a couple of the landing areas using natural barriers as roadblocks so they don’t get suspicious. I’ve got a few signs that will scare them off anyplace we want to protect.”

“We’ll want to draw them into a natural ambush area. Set up a few claymore mines with trip wires,” Nicolas said.

“I’ll cook,” Sam offered. “Ian knows his way around the claymore mines. Besides, he likes all those bugs in the swamp.”

Nicolas ignored him. “We’ll need trip flares set up anywhere there’s a possible landing site where they can sneak up on us. Tucker, you want to take care of that? I’ll need the rest of you to help with barriers once Gator gives us a location for the ambush. I want this tight, no mistakes. Let’s limit where they can come onto the island as best we can. We want them all in the same spot before we spring the trap.”

Gator’s stick continued to draw lines. “This is the canal. I’m thinking we set up shop here, Nico. It’s not too marshy, and they’ll be more apt to choose to walk through it then some of the other spots. They’ll think the bushes will be to their advantage as well, but they’ll be in a box. Half a mile up is a rock face and we can close in on either side and behind them.”

Nicolas studied the map drawn into the dirt from every angle. “It’s a go then. We have to take out the dock, Gator, otherwise, they may try a frontal attack using a mortar to take out the cabin.”

Gator shrugged carelessly. “We all have to sacrifice.

Let’s get to work. Sam, don’t you ruin those ribs. I marinated them with my special secret sauce.”

“They’re safe with me,” Sam said. “I’ll tear down the dock while the ribs are cooking. Watch for leeches, boys,” he added cheerfully, waving at them.

The men split up, jogging toward the areas directed. There were three main docking areas and one that could be used if necessary. Tucker set up the trip flares while Gator posted warning signs of sinkholes near the shore. He’d used the signs years earlier to keep the police from searching the island for his wayward brother. To make the intended landing spot more enticing, they drove a couple of old posts deep into the mud for a boat tie off and stamped vegetation into the ground to make the path appear used.

Dahlia stood on the roof and watched them work. The men shed their shirts and spent time dragging brush and placing objects in various locations. She could see a film of dirt rising in the air, but she couldn’t really tell what they were doing. All the while the music blasted a happy beat, and the smell of barbecued ribs provided a rich aroma.

Dahlia climbed off the roof to stand on the shoreline as Sam pulled apart the rickety dock. He carefully carried each plank out of sight. “What are you maniacs up to now?” she asked, her hands on her hips. If they were planning violence, she wasn’t catching a hint of fear or anticipation. They all seemed to be working readily with a happy smile. If anything she caught hints of hunger as the aroma spread across the small island.

“We’re just working up an appetite,” Sam assured. “Turn those ribs over, will you? If I burned them, the others would feed me to the alligators.”