On The Rocks (47 page)

She had no idea what John was capable of.
But Lennox did.

Hopefully, she never found out.

For now, though, Lennox had to go to ground.
The same way Bill would hunt Kizzie, the old man would hunt him. In
a few days the Crew leader would know Lennox had let her go, and
he’d lived on the fringes the last couple of years so there was no
telling who would come after him.

Not a problem. Lennox had made a habit of
getting lost. He just prayed Kizzie could do the same. Prayed one
day he’d see her again.

A few more trees had him near the middle of
the private road where he’d left the SUV, but instead of rushing
toward the car, he slowed. Hunkered behind a narrow trunk.

A sleek, dark car was parked behind the SUV,
the gull-wing door of the driver’s side raised high.

As for his ride, it was on three flats —a
loud
pop!
and slow hi
ssssss
sounded— make that four
flats. Rook responded with a hiss of his own from underneath the
vehicle. A figure in all black stood from the rear of the SUV and
strutted back toward the other ride.

Paused.

Spun in his direction quickly and squeezed
off two shots.

“Fuck,” he bit out as a hot one hit his
shoulder. He dropped to the ground, arm on fire.

Footsteps approach slowly, louder than the
sawing of the crickets in the trees.

And then, the person was coming at him
fast.

Lennox emptied his clip.

30

KIZZIE STARED OFF in the direction Lennox
had gone. That training she so often relied on helped her
compartmentalize as she worked to calm the tension between Xander
and Lennox, but now that the latter was gone, her brain started in
on the questions.

Was he telling the truth? Did Connolly
really want her dead?

After ten years of dedication to CRU and
country, Bill was going to have her murdered by her former
partner?

Even more sickening, Bill thought Lennox
would have done it.

Or was Lennox lying again, trying to get her
to go with him? Obviously it wasn’t beneath him. He’d lied about
cooking her dinner, hadn’t he?

Though his “it’ll always be you” did sound
sincere…

Kizzie scrubbed dirt-streaked fingers over
her face. She forced her heart to stop racing in order to clear her
mi—

Pop! Pop!

Her head snapped up.

The soft retorts came from the direction
Lennox had gone. Was he hit?

Did Galletti’s men find them?

She had to leave. Instead, she took an
unsteady step in the very direction she should be avoiding. Another
step and she winced at the same time two strong hands hooked her
waist.

“Kizzie,” Xander said sharply. He dragged
her against him, her rucksack pushing into her back. “We gotta
move. Now.”

“Gunshots…”

“I heard.”

She pointed feebly, still confused over
finding out a hit had been sanctioned against her. “Lennox
went…”

“Hey.” Xander spun her to face him and held
her jaw in a grip that flirted with the edge of pain. “Hey! Look at
me, Princess. You want to end up in an Italian prison or the
morgue? We gotta roll.”

Xander pulled off his jacket —tattered as it
was— and helped her into it, right over her bag. Then he hooked her
wrist and dragged her behind him, navigating the blown out pieces
of wood and glass mixed in with the rocks in the lawn.

Limping, Kizzie let herself be pulled along.
Her body was numb, but her brain was on overdrive.

If Lennox was telling the truth, Connolly
had set her up. This entire mission was a farce. Which meant Agent
Rachel Hayford was in on it. Was she really an SOO for the CIA, or
was she just another one of Bill’s CRU members, playing a role?
Where
was
Agent Fletcher? Was he even missing at all?

Was there a mole in the CIA? Or was the
entire story of Metis another lie to get her to take an op that
would end in her own death?

How deep did this deception go? Were Gale
and Sol in on it? Sol
had
broken into her house in Panama,
and she hadn’t seen him on an op since. And Gale had been quiet as
a church mouse, which was definitely abnormal for that chatty
Cathy.

Just how long had Connolly been planning on
taking her out?

And beyond that,
why
?

What the fuck had she done?

Keep moving.

Focus on Xander.

Right foot.

Her nervous system picked that exact moment
to go haywire.

Left foot.

The shakes started in her belly, then her
chest, arms, and legs. The thick smoke in the air made her take
breaths too shallow to get oxygen to her brain and she felt like
falling over.

And throwing up.

Her eyes stung and she blinked to clear her
vision.

Clear her head.

Right foot.

Connolly wanted her dead. Dead!
Her?
After all she’d done for him, for her country,
this
was how
it would end?

Left—

A sharp prick dug into her foot and raced up
her leg.

“Shit!” She lifted her heel and yanked her
hand free of Xander’s. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“Easy.” He gripped her hips and forced her
down to the ruined grass. Lifted her foot high to look at it.

Kizzie bit down on her lips, wanting to
scream, wanting to cry. Screw the pain in her foot. Her entire life
had just imploded, and everything covert agents the world over
feared the most had just come true for her.

“Glass,” Xander mumbled. “Hold still.” He
plucked the shard free and tossed it aside.

He glanced around, keeping an eye on the
perimeter as he ripped a strip off his dress shirt. Pressed it hard
against the slit in her foot.

Stung like a bitch but she barely felt
it.

Another strip and he tied it off. In a
matter of moments, he had her injury wrapped and was pulling her to
her feet.

“Can you walk?”

His eyes were on her, studying her. The
concern was clear and, god, it felt good not to be alone right now.
She could fall into that look. Depend on him…

No, she had to get her head out of her ass
and get back in the game.

Money.

Car.

Passport.

She had money in her rucksack, but that
passport? Chances were good Lennox had added them to that really
big bonfire where the cottage used to be. The flames were doing
quite a number on the old wood and stone, warping the remaining
bits of glass jutting out like broken teeth in the frames. Not a
chance in hell anything would survive it.

“Kiz, can you walk?”

She nodded hard enough to kickstart her
brain. Shocked Kizzie faded to the background.

And the badass with an attitude was
back.

The pain in her foot? Gone. The anger at her
current predicament? Multiplied.

“I’m good—” she pulled her hands free again—
“But you gotta go.”

Xander blinked. “What?”

“I’m burned, X.”

Wow, she never thought she’d say those
words.

“If Lennox is telling the truth, I’ve got
twenty-four hours, forty-eight max, before Connolly will expect him
to code in with the mission status. I don’t know what he’s been
feeding Bill, but if he was sent to kill me, Bill’s been made aware
of my every move.”

She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “If
Lennox is dead, the forty-eight’ll max out. Alive? Well… you never
can tell what that guy will do.”

She shook her head. “I gotta get low as fast
as I can, because Bill’s gonna rain holy hell down on my head. Any-
and everyone I know will be a target, which is why I don’t keep
people around. Safer that way… Especially for you. Bill probably
shit a kitten finding out about me and you…

“I gotta figure out what’s going on. You got
a wife, and a kid on the way. You don’t need my shit. So you gotta
go.”

Pointing out into the distance, she sniffed.
“Next house is half a klick east, just over that ridge there.
Owner’s got a truck. You can catch up with Phil and—

“I’m sorry. God I’m sick of saying that to
you when we part, but I shouldn’t have intervened. Whatever your
beef with Lennox, I should have stayed out of it, but I couldn’t
watch either of you kill the other.”

“You have an out,” Xander said.

“Why would I? I don’t even know what I did
to get on the hit list…” She chuffed a laugh through her nose and
forced a smile. “Tell handsome I said bye for me, yeah? And you
take care of that kid of yours.”

Xander blinked, but otherwise didn’t
respond.

Shit
, she was tired of doing this.
But that’s what made a hero, didn’t it? Doing things you don’t want
to do but you know need doing…

“Goodbye, X.”

He didn’t return the farewell.

Thank God for that. Because when the dust
settled, and she was safe, and she let herself get stupid mushy
over this loss —and she
would
get stupid mushy over this
loss— this would be the moment she looked back on, took comfort in.
Kizzie would never see him again, but not because Xander had let
her go.

With Herculean effort, she took the first
step away. That became a really slow second, but now momentum was
on her side. She picked her way through the grass, seeking out even
the tiniest glint that would indicate broken glass. At this rate
the sun would rise and set and rise again before she made it to the
street.

Still, she kept moving.

The weight on her shoulders intensified with
each step and suddenly she was just… so… damned… tired. Right now,
limping like a lame horse across this rugged landscape, the thought
of going ass to grass and waiting for Bill to come put her down had
serious appeal.

Kizzie glanced back, expecting to see
nothing but air in the space Xander had occupied.

Instead, he stood right where she’d left
him. His hands were in his pockets, stance wide, focus wholly on
her.

Which made the next step a million times
harder than the first.

She took it anyway. And the one after.

Then she stalled, deeming Operation Progress
To Nowhere a huge failure.

Her shoulders slumped as she faced him, not
knowing what to say or how to say it.

Xander tipped his head. “You done with all
the ‘I don’t
got
nobody, I don’t
neeeed
nobody,
slick!’ bullshit?”

“For the umpteenth time, X, I do
not
sound like that,” she shot back. “And I didn’t call you
‘slick’.”

“But you were thinking about it.” He covered
the distance between them easily, a benefit of wearing shoes.

When he was close enough to kiss Kizzie
tipped her head back. “Sir?”

“Yeeesss?”

“Do…” she scrunched her nose, “can I come
with you?”

Xander spun around again and Kizzie blinked.
Then he crouched low, arms away from his sides.

Smiling, Kizzie used her good foot to hop up
onto his back. He took her weight with a soft grunt. She locked her
arms over his shoulders, wrapped her legs at his waist. Kissed his
cheek.

As Xander piggybacked her out of there he
sighed. “Princess, I thought you’d never ask.”

31

Date redacted

Undisclosed Location

SOMEWHERE IN THE world, on a table in a room
with the curtains drawn tight, the puzzle was missing one
piece.

Metis searched, but couldn’t find it. Not
under the table the puzzle sat upon. Not on the dresser, where the
flatscreen showed a pundit —blue suit, white shirt— with his mouth
moving but no sound coming out.

Not on the other table, the one by the bed,
where the laptops sat open side by side.

Metis would have to find it later. For now,
the agent had a much larger problem to contend with.

On the screen of the laptop on the left, the
cursor was blinking, blinking, blinking against the black
abyss.

Words the agent did not enter appeared on
the screen for the fifth time in as many days:

Operation 3-19:

Suboperation Light Bearer. Status?

Suboperation Clean Sweep. Status?

Both were pending…

No. Inert—

No… Unfinished.

Sadly, that was the right word.

Metis stabbed the keys of the laptop on the
right, frantically combing through footage, hoping to save the
mission.

The Delegation would not tolerate a failure
of this magnitude. Operation 3-19 was a mission some twenty years
in the making. Many other operations had been carried out,
seemingly independent of the primary directive but connected to it
nonetheless. But with a chance at implementation so close, none
were as critical now as Light Bearer and Clean Sweep. Both were
essential to pinpointing threats to the Delegation.

And eliminating them accordingly.

They had to be buttoned up, quickly and
neatly. That’s where Metis came in; why the agent had been
activated after so long. To ensure the many pieces of this
complicated puzzle fit seamlessly into place.

The agent would not fail.

The agent would not let the country
fail.

Already, the solution to the problem was…
developing.

Metis came to the desired part of the
footage, rewound it, and hit record: Agent Kizzie Baldwin was in
the office. On her knees. Eyes flat as she looked up at Abrahan
Galletti and said,
“I’m Metis.”

Finally, a truly coincidental moment…

A black thumb drive was connected to the
laptop’s USB port. Metis transferred the desired footage there,
along with transaction details for the purchase of the NOC list,
among other key bits of Intel.

Now, just a few more pieces to—

A knock sounded on the room’s outer
door.

Metis pushed from the chair and strolled
across the carpet. Pressed an eye to the peek hole.

A woman stood on the other side of the
divide, back to the wall and body angled away so Metis couldn’t see
her face. Her straight black hair was in a long ponytail that
trailed down her back.