Operation Zulu Redemption: Out of Nowhere - Part 2 (9 page)

Atlas did not bear half the burden Annie saw on Téya and Trace when they entered the private hangar. Sporting two bruised eyes and a split lip, Téya stiffly crossed the open area, her shoulders sagging, hair stringy, and clothes rumpled. Trace. . .well, he had come out unscathed. But his expression reminded her of the night in Misrata.

Annie stood from the brown, six-foot table where she, Houston, and Nuala had been waiting for the others. “There’s a change of clothes back here,” Annie said as she led Téya out of the main area into a walled-off space where a bench, two sinks, and two showerheads waited.

Without a word, Téya slumped onto the bench and stared at the floor.

Annie didn’t dare ask if Téya was okay. She didn’t look defeated. But Annie had taken it as burden. She now realized that wasn’t right either.

“He marked me,” Téya muttered. “Fed my picture to every agency and who knows where else so I’d be killed.”

Annie swallowed. “The assassin?”

An almost imperceptible nod as Téya lifted her gaze to the shower area.

What could she say? In truth, there wasn’t anything. “Why don’t you shower up and change? I’ll keep watch.”

Annie stepped outside the shower area and leaned against the wall. They’d heard through a liaison who delivered them here on General Solomon’s orders that Téya and Trace had been attacked after leaving the safe house, but that’s all they were told.

Shoes scratched on the floor—coming from the main hangar area. Trace came around the corner, roughing both hands over his face. When he saw her, he let his hands fall away. He jutted his jaw toward the showers. “She okay?”

“I. . .I don’t know.” Annie folded her arms over her chest as she leaned back against the plywood wall. “I thought she was down, but I think. . .I think once she works past that numbness, she’s going to be fiery.”

“When isn’t she?” Trace let out a long, heavy sigh as he stretched his jaw and placed the heel of his hand against the spot.

Only then did Annie notice the discoloration. “What happened? The liaison said you two were attacked.”

He nodded and eased back against the wall. “They were waiting for us at the train station.”

“Who?” Annie angled toward him.

“Anyone and everyone who needed to make a quick buck.” Trace flexed his hand, his knuckles forming scabs. “The Turk sold her out, and some greedy killers took the bait. Surprised we didn’t have trouble on the train. Contained environment—perfect place to take us out.” He looked at his hand and stood there for a while.

“You okay?”

He blinked and met her gaze.

Annie willed herself not to look away, but the tightening in her belly fought her. Things had once been different between them, but then. . . Six years ago when she first met the legendary Special Forces operator, she was convinced he could move heaven and earth. While she would still follow him to the grave and beyond, Annie knew to guard her heart. The only thing important to Trace Weston was the mission.

Correction:
success
of the mission
.

He broke eye contact. “Yeah. Fine, just could use some rack time.”

“Trace—do you. . .” She wavered in asking the question because the very nature of it implied weakness, and he never wanted to consider that. But she was spent. “Do you think we have a prayer to find out who’s behind this and stop it before one or all of us end up dead?”

He scowled at her.

“You’ve been hunting this person down since we parted ways, haven’t you? And we have no answers, no more than the night we made the decision to go into hiding.”

Trace shifted his gaze away and down.

Annie moved closer and lowered her voice. “If you haven’t been able to find anything—how do we have a prayer? Candice and Jessie are dead. Keeley. . .” She wouldn’t put her friend in the grave before her time. “Every lead turns into nuclear waste. Now Téya is on the hit list of an assassin.”

“Hey.” Trace faced her, closing most of the gap between them. “Don’t do this, Annie. We’re behind, we’ve been knocked down, but we’ll get a break. We’ll find this piece of crap and end it, end him.” He leaned forward. “Every move, every attempt they make, is something we can use to track them down. They will make a mistake—if they haven’t already—and we will find and seize on that.”

This. . .
this
is why she’d fallen for Trace years ago.

His hand reached for her hair, but stopped short. “I will do everything in my power to protect you, Annie.” His gaze landed on her lips. “I promise.”

Safety and security had always been found with Trace Weston. Then things changed. “You made that promise five years ago, and then you vanished.” Annie pried herself from his spell and turned.

Téya stood there, wet hair dangling darkly around her face and dripping dark spots onto her blue T-shirt. Her gaze flitted from Annie to Trace then back.

Annie froze.

“Done with the shower?” Trace rolled around Annie as if he hadn’t just been about to kiss her. “They brought in some food. Make sure to eat,” he said to Téya. “Globemasters don’t have onboard catering.”

But Téya was still staring at Annie.

Once Trace moved out of sight and the shower started, Téya came forward. Taller than Annie by four to five inches, Téya looked down at her. “
What
was that?”

“That was Trace being Trace.” Annie rubbed her temples, then considered her friend. “Did the shower help?”

“Well, now I’m tired
and wet.
” Téya almost smiled, her pink lips pretty against her tanned complexion, something Annie envied about her friend. While Annie had blond curly hair, Téya had sandy brown, straight hair. Where Annie’s complexion was a fair-to-golden, depending on sun exposure, Téya had a pretty, slightly freckled darker complexion.

“This assassin thing. . .”

Téya’s eyes narrowed and she chewed the inside of her lower lip. “Am I stupid for wanting another run-in with him, another chance to prove he can’t kill me?”

Annie tried to bury her laugh but failed. “Yes, that’s stupid.”

“Why?” Arms folded, chin up, Téya demanded an answer.

“I didn’t mean anything about
your
abilities, but that man, if Trace is right—”

“The safe house told me I was stupid for crossing paths with him.” Téya tied back her hair with a grunt. “As if I willingly did it. Where was he? Why did he come after me?”

They made their way back to the brown table where their mostly cold food waited. “Do you think he was at the café? Maybe somehow he thinks you were involved in the bombing?”

“What if he bombed the place?” Téya gingerly lowered herself onto a chair.

Annie frowned. “You hurt?”

“He bruised a rib.”

“What if he’s been monitoring Ballenger?” Nuala offered, placing condiments in front of Téya’s burger and fries. “What if he followed him there, thinking he could find out something about Ballenger, just like we did?”

“And I’m the lucky duck who sat eating a salad, nearly getting bombed, then chased by an assassin.” Téya sighed, then stilled. “What happened to Ballenger?”

“We lost him in the panicked crowd.”

“You know,” Téya said as she lifted her burger. “I’m really beginning to hate Berg Ballenger. We get sent to his supposed home, and I get beat up. We go to Paris and I meet him, then I get beat up again.”

“You think Berg is doing all this?” Houston asked, his fingers poised over a laptop keyboard again.

“It sure is starting to feel that way.” Téya bit into her burger.

Trace emerged, clean and terse as usual. “If it looks and smells like a rat. . .”

“Then get a rat trap.” Annie scooted forward in her chair and leaned on the table, facing away from Trace and toward the others. “I mean, c’mon. There has to be something.”

Téya threw down her burger. “I have no appetite, not when some psychopath is trying to get me killed and someone else is trying to annihilate my sisters in arms.”

“What do we know?” Nuala said, her pale blue eyes alive. “We know that we went to Misrata to hit a weapons cache.”

“An illegal cache,” Trace corrected, “made up of U.S. military weapons that were reported to have been destroyed.”

“Who signed off on that?”

“A supply clerk,” Trace said. “He was cleared. As was his boss and his boss’s boss.”

“And the boss’s boss’s boss?” Nuala asked, her expression serious, though Annie wanted to laugh at the ridiculous phrasing.

“Andrew Goff. Unaware of the situation, and also the one I believe initiated the investigation in the first place.”

“Unaware?” Annie asked incredulously, turning to Trace. “And he got away with that?”

“You want to accuse a three-star? Think you could keep your career if you did?”

“Who was it?” Téya asked.

“Wait—why haven’t we heard this before?” Annie scowled at Trace. “You have information and haven’t shared it with us?”

“I have information that is not tenable,” he said as he threaded his fingers and rested his arms on the table. “What I have are disconnected pieces and a hefty dose of reality that if I move around—”

“We have to throw mud for some of it to stick,” Annie said, her agitation with Trace rising. “How can you keep this from us?”

“If I start flinging mud on the wall, the only thing that’s going to
stick
is my butt—right up the flagpole.” Trace placed his fingertips on the table as he stared at each of them in turn. “I need you three to trust that I am doing everything I can to end this attack on your lives. That I have not gone one day without searching, investigating, or hunting some element related to Zulu or Misrata.” He skated Annie a sidelong glance. “No matter what some might insinuate.”

“I believe you,” Téya said. “It’s just. . .hard to take.”

“What is?” he asked quietly.

“Everything connected to Misrata, to those children we killed.” Téya looked down. “And after all this time, we have no better leads? And now, I have a professional assassin—a very
well-connected
assassin—trying to kill me.”

“That may not be related to us,” Trace said.

“It’s very related to us,” Téya argued.

“I only meant that most likely there is no connection to Misrata, to why the team is being hit now.”

“Think someone has political aspirations?” Nuala offered. Her olive skin made her appear much younger than her twenty-five years. “And they were afraid we’d come out of the woodwork?”

“Is it possible that whoever is behind it thinks we know who
he
is?” Annie asked.

“Plausible,” Trace said with a slow nod. “But the timing—there aren’t any elections coming up. You were all going about your business without ruffling any feathers. The hits feel. . .strategic.”

“What threat were we?” Téya asked. “I would’ve been perfectly content to stay in Bleak Pond with David.”

“Manson met my needs,” Annie admitted, her thoughts bouncing to Sam. . .who felt, strangely, a million miles away.

“I felt lost,” Nuala said plainly. “I didn’t fit in anywhere, and the nightmares made it impossible to be in a relationship or get a roommate.” She shrugged, her expression bland. “I’m glad to get this figured out. Maybe a resolution will bring healing.”

“Ballenger seems to be our best bet,” Trace said.

“Best bet?” Téya frowned. “He’s brought us nothing but trouble.”

“Which means he’s a hot spot. We keep digging. We don’t let up.”

“The three-star general,” Annie said. “Can we know who he is?”

Trace eased back. “I’ll consider it, check with Solomon.”

“Yes,” Téya said, picking at the burger. “What about Solomon—Francesca Solomon, I mean? She’s been stirring up trouble, right?”

“Her father is dealing with that. She’s dog-headed like you three but barking up the wrong tree.”

“Maybe her digging will unearth something we need,” Nuala muttered

“Too bad she’s not on our side,” Annie said.

Trace snorted. “Not happening. Look, we get back to the bunker, and we dig as hard as we can into Ballenger. He gave us a name and information we can work to verify.”

“Someone up this chain of command knows something,” Annie said. “It’s time to apply some pressure.”

The familiar and oddly familial smell of the Green Dot brought Sam a measure of comfort as he held the door for a family of four exiting with their food. Sam gave a nod to Jeff before sliding into a seat at a table opposite Lowen Miles.

Sun glinted through the thin blinds, forcing Sam to adjust them.

“What’d you find?” Lowen asked in a hushed voice, his tone giddy.

“Wounded women.” Sam rapped his knuckles against the table. “The one in Amish country is from there—lived with her grandmother. Was dating—”

“They don’t date. They court.”

“Whatever.” Sam scratched the back of his head. “The girl in the hospital outside DC has a twenty-four-hour private guard. I can’t get in there.”

“But Otto can,” Lowen said.

The guy’s slick smile made Sam want to punch him.

A sandwich tray slid across the table and stopped in front of Sam as Jeff joined them. “Back from your hunt?”

“Obviously.”

Jeff eyed him. “By your attitude, it didn’t go so well.”

“Waste of time,” Sam said.

“But both women were wounded the same day.”

“And two kids contracted measles in LA on the same day and ended up in the hospital. Doesn’t mean they’re connected.” Sam felt himself leaning forward, invading Lowen’s space. “It’s called a coincidence.”

“Then why would someone tip us off, give us their names?”

“To divert attention.” Jeff shrugged. “Sorry, I tried to warn you—”

Sam pounded the table with his fist. “I’m sick of this. I want answers. I want to know where she is.”

“What if she doesn’t want to be found?”

“I need
her
to tell me that.”

“No,” Lowen said. “I think we’re still missing something.”

“Yeah. Kinda figured that out, genius,” Sam said.

Light swung into the Green Dot as the door flung open. A man stumbled in, hair askew, shirt inside out, and papers clutched to his chest.

“Otto?” Sam was halfway to his feet when his cyber-genius friend spotted him and scurried toward them.

“You’re not going to believe this.” Otto dropped the wad of papers onto the table. “You told me to look into those ladies, right?”

Sam’s pulse thumped in anticipation. This could be it. “Yeah. . .?”

“Well, I did.” He scrambled to dig through the pile he’d just dumped. He snatched up one then two, then a third. He laid them out.

Though Sam’s irritation was high, he looked at the three. “Dossiers?” he asked, noting the picture, the vital statistics. . . .

“Of a sort. I mean, I put them together. They aren’t official records. If you go to Las Vegas, Alaska, or the Caribbean, you won’t find these documents. I just thought—”

“Otto,” Lowen snapped.

“Right. Well, check them out. Closely.”

Sam, Jeff, and Lowen each took one. Sam had chosen the girl in Las Vegas—Jamie Hendricks. Saw her birth date, her school records. Medical records.

“What’s your point?” Jeff asked as he swapped dossiers with Sam. “I’m not seeing anything.”

“Exactly,” Otto said. “Their history is perfect. Too perfect, especially for someone who ended up on the street doing drugs.”

Squeezing into a chair, Otto hoisted a tablet onto the table and slid it over to Sam. “Look up her high school yearbook.”

Sam frowned. Glanced at the name again, then tapped it into the tablet.

“Go to yearbooks. It’s there.”

So Sam did. Dug through the classes and found her. He shrugged.

Eyes gleaming, Otto took the tablet back. “So, I noticed something weird in the picture. Pixilation was off or something. I dug in and got a friend to check it. My friend says the picture isn’t original to the page. The color and pixels are different. So my friend went to the school and looked at a copy of the yearbook—a real copy.” Otto handed over a piece of paper. “She’s not there.”

“Amish girl is a little harder because they don’t think it’s right to take pictures or something,” Otto went on, “but running her face through recognition software, something popped up.” He had this sinister laugh that almost made Sam’s skin crawl. “Facebook can be a jealous boyfriend’s best friend.”

The geek had better not be talking about me
.

“Someone posted this high school picture.”

Sam stared at the picture, his mind revving.

“If she’s Amish,” Otto asked triumphantly, “why is there a high school picture of her from New York?”

“I see where you’re going, but there could be very simple explanations. Maybe Amish girl went to visit friends in New York? Maybe her parents were ill or something and she had to stay with an aunt or uncle for a short while.” Sam wouldn’t jump to conclusions.

“But I’d think she’d be more likely to stay with Amish friends or relatives within the Amish community than to send her out into the world.”

Otto tapped the picture. “Look closely. Amish girl is wearing a work uniform. She wasn’t just visiting. She
lived
there. Worked at a pizza joint. Really?”

“They’re not against hard work,” Lowen said.

“The comments indicate the girl is named Téya Reiker.”

Sam, Lowen, and Jeff said nothing.

“What about Vegas girl?” Otto went on. “Her yearbook picture?”

“Maybe Vegas girl was accidentally left out of the yearbook but they added her in digitally once the technology became available,” Sam conjectured.

Lowen nodded. “I’ve seen that happen.”

“Oh, come on,” Otto cried, tossing up his hands.

Sam wagged a paper at him. “Look, this is good information, but it’s frayed. And not enough to string together a realistic theory or to mobilize.”

“What if I told you Ashland Palmieri doesn’t exist?”

Sam eyeballed the guy.

“Beyond the information on her record, there is no other record of her anywhere, except here in Manson.” Otto motioned to Jeff. “How did you pay her?”

“With a check. Twice a month.”

“Where did she cash it?”

“Stamp on the back when they’re returned says Manson Community Bank.”

Otto gave a knowing nod. “All local. All know her. Outside of this community and outside that vital records information, she doesn’t exist. No credit cards. No phone bills. No car.”

And I thought she was just environmentally conscious.

“Look,” Sam said, feeling as if he sat on the verge of a huge breakthrough related to Ashland, but. . . “This broken data trail gets me exactly
nowhere
in recovering Ashland.”

“I think we should be careful,” Jeff said. “Her disappearance is really solid. If she’s still alive—”

Sam stiffened but said nothing.

“Whoever is hiding her,” Jeff continued, “whether she’s doing it or someone else, it could be very dangerous to find her.”

“Dangerous to whom?” Lowen asked.

“Any and all of us.” Jeff remained calm.

“Or her,” Sam put in.

“So we give up?” Otto asked, his voice squeaking.

“No, we continue hunting but we stay low. Off radars. Whatever trouble found Ashland, we don’t need it finding us.”

“I’d like to know who tipped us off about those girls,” Lowen said. “I can almost feel it—there’s a connection here.”

“Agreed.”

“Otto,” Sam said. “Check into that Amish chick, the other name that showed up.”

Otto nodded. “Already working on it.”

“I’ve got to get going,” Lowen said as he stood. He lifted the picture of the Amish girl and stacked it in with his stuff.

Was that an accident, him taking the picture?

Lowen tucked it away. The move seemed deliberate and bothered Sam.

“Hey,” Sam said, “d’you mind leaving the picture? I want to go over it.”

“What?” Lowen asked, his expression almost blank. Rehearsed.

Did he really want to do this? Sam came to his feet, knuckles on the table as he nodded to the papers sticking out. “We need those.”

“Oh. Right.” Lowen’s laugh was hollow. Fake. “Catch you later.”

Sam sat down, watching Lowen exit the Green Dot. Something was. . .off about that guy.

“A problem?” Jeff asked.

“Don’t trust him,” Sam admitted.

“He’s a reporter,” Otto said with a laugh. “It’s probably better that you don’t. Anyway, I need to jet. I have
real
work to do. You know, the kind that gets
appreciated
by those who ask me to do it.”

“Those people probably pay you, too.”

Otto sniffed. “I have to leave someone to do all your dirty work.”

Sam almost smiled. “Thanks, Otto, I mean it. We’re getting close. . . .” And yet the closer he got, the farther away he felt from Ashland. Or whoever she was. Or wasn’t.

He and Jeff watched as the geek hurried to the counter and ordered a sandwich before leaving.

“You doing okay?” Jeff asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Haven’t even touched your bacon cheeseburger sub.”

Sam glanced down at the sub.

“Need to add an olive the way Ashland did?”

With a soft snort, Sam shook his head.

“So, traveled to Pennsylvania and DC and got pretty much nothing. Then our powwow with the others only adds confusion. Quite a winning streak.”

“And to top it off”—he tugged a ticket out of his pocket and flung it on the table—“I got a ticket.”

Jeff chuckled and lifted the paper. Something metal clattered across the table.

Sam’s heart vaulted into his throat when he saw the ring. He slapped a hand out to stop it, but—

Jeff beat him to it.

Hand on Jeff’s, Sam held his gaze. “Leave it.” Warning heated the words and Sam’s temper.

“You were going to propose?”