Risk of Exposure (Alpha Ops Book 6) (10 page)

I
f you need evidence that the Russians are on the border, and it is really them—although everyone knows it is—then we’ve got to go and get photos of something that says Russian troops,” Mal said.

“Then we have to get it uploaded in a farmhouse with no Internet, and a town with no power. How hard can that be?”

He grinned as she mocked him. None of this was going to be easy.

They slipped back into their snow gear and he watched admiringly as Abby strapped on her guns. He still had some of his things stashed in the barn, so the plan was to grab those on the way out. He’d had one opportunity to go get them but didn’t want to risk bringing more guns into a house with a lot of small children.

Once kitted up, they made their way downstairs, using the front door, which Abby had said was rarely used and farthest away from the kitchen. By the sounds of it, people were still there drinking. Getting out was easy. The wind was blowing and absorbing any noise they made. Getting around to the barn was a different matter. The kitchen windows looked out to the barn. They just couldn’t risk it, so they made tracks away from the house and down into the meadow, which was hidden from the whole house except the turret.

For a nice change in luck, the wind was at their backs, making it easier to see and easier to progress. Maybe this was where their luck changed. Maybe they could get this done, get back to civilization, and spend time together before either of them got shipped out to their next job. That was if he still had a next job when Baston read his reports, which now that he thought about it, would have to sound as if he’d dragged Abby into the World War III business and not vice versa.

He shrugged. He was just a tad beyond caring what Baston believed was going on here. He was so fired.

“Are you okay?” Abby shouted into the wind as she looked back.

He gave a thumbs-up and caught up with her. By his estimation, they still had about two hours of walking to go, more if the wind changed.

But it didn’t. Their luck held. For once.

There was a wooded area to their right, and he grabbed Abby’s arm and pointed her toward it. They needed cover to see what they needed to photograph. No sense in wandering up and down the border crossing and hoping no one would see them.

They crouched in the small glade of trees, digging out snow and trying to find some non-icy floor for their hideout, because God alone knew how long they’d be there.

After watching Abby wriggling into a half-dug hole between a bush and a low-hanging tree, he crawled in after her. There was room enough to crouch and sit out the snowfall. As soon as the blizzard stopped—and he hoped it did soon—they could scope out the border line. They were maybe thirty meters from it, but visibility was still virtually nil.

Abby took her hood down and put a headband on that covered her ears. She looked as if she were about to go skiing.

“I wish we had the luxury of a weather forecast. I just want to know if we’ll be sitting here for hours or days.”

“Could be either,” he said.

“How very intuitive of you.” She grinned and tugged her shotgun from her back and put it in front of her.

There was silence between them for a minute as they looked out toward Russia.

“Where’s home for you?” he asked her.

She frowned. “The apartment in town. Hint: You’ve. Been. There.” She started rummaging in her tiny backpack for something.

“No, I mean when you’re in the U.S.,” he said.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have anywhere. What about you?”

“I have a flat in London and an apartment in D.C., where your father’s office is. Although, when he gets to hear about this, I doubt I’ll be needing the apartment in D.C.”

“Awww, don’t be like that,” she said. “I’ll make sure you still have a job.”

“How? You’ll tell your father that you’re a highly trained CIA operative?”

“No, of course not. I’ve told you that already. I can’t tell him without losing my own job.”

He cared less about that than her not having a home. “You seriously don’t have stuff in the US? No apartment? What about a storage locker?”

She settled back into the makeshift foxhole and turned to face him.

“I get that you think because I’m posing as an aid worker that I must have a different life somewhere—but I don’t. Even though I’m playing a part, most of the time, this is still my life. If I put some imaginary life on hold in the US while I’m working, then I’ll never feel like I’m living the life I have here—or wherever they send me next. I have to live my life where I am, or I’ll never really be living. Does that make sense?”

In a very sad way, maybe. Or perhaps it wasn’t sad at all. Perhaps this life in her apartment was a fulfilling one. He just didn’t know. “It does make sense, actually. So what do you do to make your fake life real? Do you have hobbies, things you like doing while you’re undercover?”

She hesitated. “Not…really. I actually don’t have much time to do anything else here. While I was in Moscow, I learned how to tango and play a mean game of darts, but here there’s not been much time for any of that.”

“Darts, huh?” he said, even though his mind was on her in a long red dress dancing a tango, rose between her teeth.
Rose between her teeth?
“Can you play Killer?” he asked, referring to a specific type of pub darts, and needing to change the subject.

“I don’t
play
Killer.” She shook her head in pity. “I
own
Killer,” she said with triumph in her eyes.

“Challenge accepted. Next time you’re in London, we’ll see if you live up to the hype. Be careful what you bet me.”

“You be careful what
you
bet. Be sure you’re ready to lose it too.”

A short silence fell as he put the digi-binoculars up to his eyes and scanned the horizon. The snow was getting a little lighter. “Bloody hell,” he whispered slowly before shoving the glasses at Abby. There were armored vehicles stretched as far as the eyes could see. Which, to be fair, wasn’t that far in the snow.

 “Shit,” she whispered back. “I wanted to be wrong. I really wanted to be wrong.”

“Do you see any personnel?” he asked.

“None in sight.”

“You need to call this in,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Really? I thought I might go take one for a joyride,” she murmured. She pulled out her antiquated cell phone and dialed. He could hear the static from where he was sitting.

“Give it ten minutes. It looks as if the sky is clearing.” He nodded toward the rear of them, where the moon was shining behind dashing clouds.

He watched as she fidgeted, eyes to the sky, waiting for the clouds to pass. The snow had already stopped, but she still managed to look like an angel on a Christmas card, with bright eyes and snowflakes on her eyelashes. He wanted to brush them off, but it felt uncomfortably like what someone in a romantic comedy would do. Not that he’d ever watched any. Nope. Maybe one or two—when there was nothing else on. He deliberately looked away. He was trying hard not to get involved with her op—whatever that turned out to be.

It did look like she was right on the money, though. White armored trucks, hiding in the snow. He thought about the implications. Now that he was here, looking at the huge vehicles, none of it seemed entirely clear. He wasn’t sure about the capabilities of those vehicles, but he wasn’t sure that one could actually invade another country successfully with them. It’s not like they were tanks.

“I’ve got a signal,” she said. He wondered what her boss would ask her to do, and by implication what he’d have to do. There was no way he had time to render all the vehicles undrivable. And the two of them against the number of troops it would take to drive and man them sounded like a suicide mission.

“Kate? Kate, thank God,” she said.

He raised his eyes to the sky and prayed that she wouldn’t be ordered to do anything suicidal, because he knew right now that he wouldn’t let her go alone. Wouldn’t let her fight this battle alone. Wouldn’t let her get shot. And shit. Would he take a bullet for her? Would he let his finely honed survival instinct take a backseat to protect her? Was he in love with her? He kicked the ground in front of him, making Abby glance quickly at him. He smiled. “Spider,” he whispered.

She pulled a face and continued talking to Kate.

Fuck. Fuck. He
was
in love with her. He waited for the fear to permeate his already-frozen body. The fear of commitment, of the thought of caring enough about another human being that you’d rather take a bullet than see them take one.

It didn’t come.

“Dammit, Kate. You’re breaking up. Speak slower.” It seemed that Kate had been holding in a two-day panic that was now being released in a rush down the phone.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. I just thought something may have happened.” She seemed to swallow. “I knew there was a snowstorm…I knew it. I just don’t like knowing I can’t get hold of you.”

“I would have emailed, but the town lost power too. In fact, you should look at that. There is thought around here that the Russians hacked the town’s grid to prevent any communication. I’m at the border right now and there are very large armored trucks and other vehicles lined up as if they’re about to cross into Ukraine. What do you want me to do?” Abby took a breath. There was no sense muddying Kate’s mind with the fact that there were police and an annoyed woman at the orphanage. One who might snitch on her at any moment. Or the fact that she had some non-official company. She cut her eyes to Malone, who was staring at the sky. She looked up, too, just in case she was missing paratroopers dropping from an aircraft. Nope. Now he seemed to be looking at the border.

“I’m going to give you directions in sixty minutes—”

Static buzzed for a couple of seconds and then there was silence. She looked at the brick of a phone. It was dead. “Son of a…,” she said. “The battery’s dead. I charged it last night. I don’t understand.” She shook it, frustration crushing her. They would have to walk back to the farmhouse in order to charge it, but they’d never make it back in an hour. “Fuck.”

“She said she would be giving me orders in an hour.” She knew she didn’t have to explain anything else to him—he’d pick up all the implications.

“Everything loses its charge faster in low temperatures. Even me,” he said with a cocked eyebrow.

“I find that hard to believe. At least of you.” She shoved the dead phone back in her pocket. “Hmmmm,” she said, following Malone’s line of sight.

He nodded, still watching the line of vehicles. “Maybe we can borrow one?”

Abby squinted at the armored vehicles. “I’ve seen no troops here. It’s like a parking lot.”

“And why armored vehicles?” he asked quietly.

Shit. He was right. Why armored vehicles instead of tanks? The Russians had over fifteen thousand tanks, and they had been impossible to stop when they invaded Crimea, the southern part of the Ukraine. So why the hell were they using armored vehicles here if they were planning to invade? Why wouldn’t they have their tanks lined up? “Ohhhh.”

Malone got up. “Right. Let’s test this theory. Let’s see if anyone’s here.”

Before she could stop him, he’d jumped out of the foxhole and into the moonlight. She winced, staying put for a second, and then realized that she wasn’t going to sit there while he put himself on the line for her mission. She climbed out, holding her gun at eye level, scanning the vehicles and her heart slowing with the anticipation of gunfire. None came. Not even a sound. No exhaust was being emitted, so none of the vehicles were on. There were also no footprints.

She lowered her gun. As she did, Malone turned around and looked at her. He shrugged and tucked his gun in his snowsuit pocket. “There’s no one here. Literally no one.” She caught up with him as he was scraping the snow from the side windows with his arm and looking inside.

“Empty.”

He strode along the length of the line, counting as he went. “Fifty-six,” he shouted back at her. She tucked her own weapon away and one by one, started scraping the snow from the driver side window, looking for keys left inside.

She found them in the eleventh vehicle. The door opened as if it was on hydraulics. Nice, better than the ones she’d been in before. They needed an act of God to open or close the doors. Jesus, the Russians had upgraded their military. Not just tanks that couldn’t be stopped, but also nifty armored cars too. She got in and turned the key. It started beautifully the first time.

She got out and beckoned to Malone. “Come on, let’s go!”

“Tell me you hot-wired it. That would be such a turn-on,” he said as he jogged to the passenger side of the truck.

And it was such a turn-on for her that he didn’t automatically try to drive.

They got in and closed their doors with a swoosh. He raised his eyebrows at her and she nodded. “I know. Nicer than anything I’ve sat in on the job.”

“Worryingly enough, me too. Our armored stuff works great, but nothing about them is easy or comfortable.” He pressed a button to lower the window to rid it of the snow. “When did they upgrade? I mean, last I paid attention to them, they couldn’t afford to pay their troops. And now they have state-of-the-art equipment. I’m suddenly concerned.”

“Me too,” she said, slipping it into gear and crossing the border. As she did, she wondered…was she now a Russian agent by bringing one of its vehicles across the border? If the Ukrainians were all over this, would they open fire? She glanced at Malone, who seemed more interested in checking out the controls and the capabilities of it than the geopolitics of their borrowing it.

The progress was slow, as she didn’t want to risk running into a ditch or anywhere that would hamper their journey back to the farmhouse. If they didn’t get to the phone, NATO could be mobilized to the border. Which twenty minutes ago, she wanted. But now she realized this whole operation with the armored vehicles had been one hell of a decoy.

“Just a distraction,” she muttered, shaking her head.

“What? What did you say?” Suddenly all of Malone’s attention was on her.