Station Alpha: (Soldiering On #1) (2 page)

“Left.”

The car skidded a little on a wet patch as she turned. She wasn’t sure what had caused it, as there hadn’t been any rain lately. She hit the kerb with her rear tire, bouncing before righting herself. The engine throbbed with strain.

“Shit,” she muttered, then felt an immediate hit of lapsed-Catholic guilt.

“You’re doing real well,” Paul said in an encouraging voice. Christine was oddly soothed.

The orange glow of the streetlights bathed her path. The whoosh of her tires on the road was the only sound she could hear.

She made a few more turns as Paul instructed, running a few red lights in the process. Christine was grateful that the late hour meant that she didn’t endanger anyone else.

“I think we’ve lost them,” Paul’s voice murmured. Christine glanced in the rear view mirror to see he was right. The black SUVs that had been glued to her trail had disappeared.

“Thank God,” she breathed, easing her foot off the accelerator.

“Don’t slow down too much,” Paul told her, still tense. “Keep to the speed limit. Don’t relax until you’re safe.”

Her racing heartbeat returned full force. Just for a moment, she’d felt the relief of safety. But he was right; it was an illusion.

She cruised the streets. Crossing the river, the bare neighbourhoods she’d left morphed into lush green suburbs. He was taking her east, skirting the edges of the Portsboro central business district, with its skyscrapers and high-rises. While during the day the city centre teemed with besuited workers, at this time of night it would only be populated by a few drunk stragglers.

As she drove, Christine checked every few seconds to make sure the cars weren’t following her. Paul still directed her, just with less urgency, giving her plenty of time to turn.

“I have so many questions,” she said into the darkness.

“Like I said. Later.”

“Are you directing me to where you are?”

He hesitated. “No.”

“Then where am I going?” Panic itched at her, leaking into her voice. Paul had saved her life. She felt attached to him. But going to an unknown location, alone? The thought made it difficult to breathe.

“A safe house that the company I work for owns.”

“What do you do for a living?” she asked, partially to sate her curiosity, and partially to distract herself.

“This and that. The company does all kinds of jobs. I do most of the surveillance.”

“Is that why you were watching me?”

He was silent for a moment, and Christine wished she could see his face. She sensed that he was debating how much to tell her. Or maybe deciding if he should lie to her.

“Sort of,” he replied.

“Well?” she demanded.

He directed her to pull up around the back of an apartment building up ahead. Christine complied, pulling into an empty space near the back of the lot, but didn’t make a move to exit the car. Trees hung over the surrounding fences, blocking out much of the moonlight. The car was dark, shadowed.

“Go inside,” he ordered.

“Not until you answer me,” she said, feeling bolder now that the immediate danger had passed.

He made one of those frustrated sounds again, almost a growl.

“I’ll tell you when you get inside.”

She shook her head, then wondered if he could see her. “No. I don’t know what I’m walking into. You need to give me something.”

He was silent for a long moment. She could hear his short breaths coming through the speakers.

“Fine,” he ground out. His displeasure was evident in the way the word sounded like it’d come through a clenched jaw. “Someone hired us to watch you, but not as protection. We were meant to ascertain whether you knew certain information. They thought you might be a corporate spy.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Your employer.”

“Mr. Disik?”

“His company.”

“I wasn’t aware he had one,” she whispered. She felt small compared to the vast swathe of information she didn’t know. “Why do they think I’m a spy? I never did anything. I’ve only worked there for two weeks.”

“He’s retired, though still listed on the board of directors. We were hired to watch you, see if you met with anyone suspicious.”

“And?”

“Nothing. If we hadn’t found anything after three weeks, the job would have been over. You would never have known we were there.”

“But then tonight happened.”

“Yeah. And I broke just about all the rules we have in getting you out of there.”

“Saving my life was against the rules?” Her heart hammered.

He cleared his throat. “No revealing ourselves to the suspect. No direct contact with the suspect. No interference in any operation, meet, or other unusual activity. No revealing that we have access to our own personal spy satellite…” He sounded like he was ticking each item off on his fingers.

“Right,” she murmured. She squeezed her eyes shut as tears sprang in them. “Well, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You’re not inside and safe.”

She smiled at his grumble. “One last question, and then I promise I’ll go in.” Her heartbeat was slowing to a more normal rate.

He grunted, and Christine took it as a yes. “Why did you break the rules for me?” The words came out in a whisper.

He was silent for a long time. Christine once again got the feeling that he was considering whether he should lie.

She didn’t know this stranger. But he’d helped her through the most dramatic event of her life. Now, it was just the two of them in the enclosed cabin of her car, his voice surrounding her in the early morning quiet. Like a confessional. It all combined to weave an unexpected spell of trust and intimacy between them. His answer mattered to her.

He sighed, and it sounded pained. “From what I could tell from my—our—research and surveillance, you didn’t deserve whatever they had planned for you. Or, at least, I hoped you didn’t.”

“Will you get in trouble for disobeying?”

“That’s another question.”

She grinned, and the expression felt strange on her face after the events of the last hour or so. “Humour me,” she told him.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Could go either way. Now will you come inside? It’s on the fourteenth floor. Apartment two.”

She almost laughed at the playful petulance in his voice. “Yeah,” she said, to put him out of his misery. She gathered her things and got out of the car. It wasn’t until the frigid air hit her that she realised she was wearing her pyjamas. She tugged at the hem of the shorts, fruitlessly attempting to cover more of her legs. It had been a while since she’d showed that much skin in public. At least she’d had the foresight to put shoes on.

All the energy drained out of her at once. Christine felt bereft, shivering alone in a strange, unfamiliar parking lot. She trudged inside, almost uncaring about what might await her.

Chapter 2

Paul watched Christine on one of the five screens arrayed in front of him. She trudged past the security guard he had already briefed, her shoulders slumped.

Two of his screens displayed feeds from the various security cameras in the building. The other three were for different jobs he was supposed to be monitoring. Together, they emitted just enough muted light for him to see his keyboard in the darkened room. He typed in a command, switching the images around to follow Christine’s progress. 

She stepped into the elevator, then slumped back against the mirror, defeat lining her posture. A swell of sympathy rose within him. He wished he could go to her, hold her, comfort her. But he wouldn’t, and he very much doubted that she’d want him to.

He swallowed, trying to ignore the fact that she was wearing tiny pyjamas; a tempting amount of her smooth, tawny skin was on display. He’d already known she was pretty. No one could miss it from her file photos. It had been confirmed as he’d watched her over the last week through the various security feeds he’d hacked to surveil her. But he’d never allowed himself to look this closely.

It had been different when she’d been a potential suspect, but it hadn’t been long before he’d realised that their employer’s suspicions were probably unfounded. Not that he’d told his boss that. Instead, he’d continued watching her. More than was warranted based on the requirements of the job. He’d justified it as just being thorough, but deep down he’d known he was lying to himself.

He’d liked watching her; liked seeing her go about her life. Sometimes he’d imagined that he was a part of it. He tried to forgive himself for his imaginings. She was pretty, and hard-working, and seemed sweet. She always smiled at the baristas when she ordered her morning coffee, and gave her change to the homeless man that was always outside the café.

For a man that had spent most of the last year inside a darkened apartment, observing other people but not participating in any of their lives, she was like a sweet breath of fresh air in the stale-smelling room.

It was only partly the job’s fault that he was so isolated. Yes, someone was meant to monitor all the feeds across all the jobs in the company. But there was no reason that he and the others couldn’t take shifts doing it. There were plenty of other people that worked for Soldiering On that could help him. But he’d refused, preferring the safety and anonymity that the role provided.

If any of the other guys had been in his position, they would have gone to her. Met her at the door in person and reassured her that she’d be safe. But he couldn’t. His safe little fantasy world was far better than the disappointment he would no doubt see in her eyes if they ever happened to come face to face.

Paul shook himself out of his morose thoughts as she reached the apartment on level fourteen. He remotely disengaged the lock for her and watched as she hesitantly pushed the door open with her fingertips. She peered inside, appearing reluctant to go in.

Their initial connection had been broken when she’d shut off the car engine. He clicked open the program on his computer that he used to make untraceable calls. He wanted to reassure her. Before he could, she seemed to come to some kind of decision on her own. Her hand reached up to flick on the light and she stepped inside. Paul let his hand fall.

He knew what she saw. It was a small apartment, but well-kept. There was a bathroom to the left. Other than that, it was a single room. Open plan, with a double bed in a small alcove and a desk opposite. The kitchenette had white laminate countertops, and a small table with two chairs pushed against one wall. Any furnishings had clearly been chosen for cost-effectiveness and functionality, not aesthetics. Everything, other than the deep purple bedspread, was either white or grey. Paul suspected it was not a welcoming sight for Christine.

The apartment was a safe house that their company owned. Soldiering On’s employees occasionally used the space if they needed to let some dangerous heat die down, but it was mostly for the people they protected. It occurred to him that perhaps they should make it a little more welcoming. Many of the people that stayed there had just gone through a life-altering shock. They could do with some comfort.

He switched the feeds to those inside the apartment, wanting to make sure that Christine was safe and not too disheartened.

Seeing her standing in the middle of the room, staring at what looked like nothing, broke his heart. He dialled the landline in the room. She snapped out of her stupor and hurried to pick it up.

“Paul?” she asked, her voice small.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. Christ, his protective instincts were flaring like crazy with her.

He heard her breathy sound of relief, and his yearning for her grew stronger. He knew that she was attached to him because he’d just saved her life. There was no way that he wanted to take advantage of that.

“What do I do now?” she asked, sounding a little stronger. She sat on the bed, facing the phone and giving him her back.

“You need to destroy your cellphone. If these guys are even a little bit competent, which I think they are, then they’ll trace the signal. If they haven’t already. I enabled a remote encryption when I called you, but it won’t stand up to thorough scrutiny by a good system.”

She nodded. She ripped off the back of her phone, pulled out the battery, and dropped both on the floor. Standing, the landline still at her ear, she stomped on both again and again with a surprising amount of force. The tiny remains of the device littered the floor.

“Done,” she said, and he realised that she didn’t know – couldn’t know – that he was watching her. He debated whether he should tell her; whether it would make her feel more violated or safer to know that he was monitoring her. But before he could decide, she spoke again.

“What do I do now?”

“You should try to get some sleep,” he told her.

She laughed, sounding surprised. “You think I could sleep after all that?”

“I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. You need to rest. In case.”

There were so many ‘in case’ scenarios that immediately crowded his mind that he didn’t bother listing them. He just hoped that she’d get some sleep so he could call his boss and confess what he’d done. But he wanted her to feel safe and comfortable before he cut the line with her.

“I’m far too wired,” she told him.

“Maybe just get into bed, and you’ll relax.”

“Will you keep talking to me?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah.” Jesus. She was going to give him some kind of hero complex.

She toed off her shoes and lay back in the bed, pulling the covers up to her chest. Paul was thankful most of that tempting skin was now covered.

“So, who were those guys?” she asked after a moment of silence. “You said that they wanted to take me, but why? I can’t stop thinking about it.”

He sighed. It wasn’t a topic that was likely to soothe her to sleep. But he knew that her mind would be unable to relax if she kept going over the problem.

“There are two reasons they might want you. One would be if you had some information they want to get out of you. The other would be for leverage.”

“Leverage?”

He kept his voice gentle. “If someone else had something they wanted. Someone that would do whatever these guys asked them to just to protect you. Someone that loves you.”

She was silent, pondering this, and his heart beat faster in his chest. Did she have someone? A boyfriend that he didn’t know about? Someone that would do anything to protect her?

After a long moment, she replied. “It’s not that option.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked, intrigued by the flatness in her voice.

“I don’t have any family. I was an only child and my parents died a long time ago. I have friends, but they all have far more important people in their lives than me. Spouses and children and families.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I’m not important to anyone.”

Paul’s heart ached. He knew exactly how that felt. He, too, had no family. He’d been in the military his entire adult life. His friends were all his military buddies, but after the last mission, he’d pushed most of them away. Couldn’t bear for them to see him.

Even his co-workers at Soldering On didn’t know much about him on a personal level. It was entirely of his own design, but some days he had regrets.

“I know what that’s like,” he murmured, surprising himself. The intimacy of the dark room and her voice in his ear were making him confess things he normally wouldn’t.

“You don’t have anyone, either?” she asked, voice soft.

“No,” he said shortly. “I spend all my days looking at these screens. Not really the best way to build relationships.”

“Maybe you should think about getting out more.” He could hear the slight smile in her voice.

“Maybe,” he said, smiling in turn. They both knew he was lying.

“So, if I’m not being used as leverage, it means they think I know something.”

“Yeah,” Paul said, getting back on track. “Something that they want or need to know.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, if it was simply that you had information that they didn’t want you to know, they’d just kill you. The only reason to take you would be to get that information out of you.”

She clutched the bedspread to her chest and cursed himself for his insensitivity. He hurried on. “It’s a good sign that they want to kidnap you. It gives you leverage in return. If you think about it, the power is in your hands.” That wasn’t strictly true, but he thought it might make her feel better. Apparently it did, because she loosened her hold on the covers.

“So, I guess the question is, what information do they think I have?”

Paul grunted his frustration. “That I don’t know. But it would be good to find out.”

She made a sound of agreement. “If we knew who they were, we’d have a better idea of what they want. And if we knew what they wanted, we’d have a better idea of who they are.” She was a smart one. Admiration surged within him.

“Yeah. As it is, we’re a little in the dark. Hopefully not for long.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Once you go to sleep, I’ll do some research. There must be some clue as to their identity.”

“Like what?” She sounded excited now.

“I’ll trace the license plates on the cars they were using. It might not lead anywhere, but you never know. If my boss is still talking to me once I tell him what I did, I should be able to get him to send a team down to your house to comb the area. They might have left something behind. But the biggest clue will be your new job.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems a little coincidental that you started a new job, then we were hired to watch you, and then this happened, all in the space of two weeks.”

“You’re right,” she replied. “It must all be connected.”

“Yeah. We’ve just gotta figure out how.”

She sighed, a slight smile gracing her face. Paul thought that he could see her eyes drifting closed. “I trust you to figure it out,” she murmured, punctuated by a yawn.

His chest constricted. “I promise, I will. Even if I can’t understand why you’d trust me. I was surveilling you.”

“You’re like my guardian angel. Watching over me. Intervening when you needed to. I like that thought.”

When she put it like that, Paul felt slightly less creepy. But he realised that she still didn’t know he was watching her right then, tucked up in bed.

“In the interest of full disclosure, there’s a security camera in your room.”

“You’re watching me right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” She sighed. “That makes me feel a lot safer.”

Paul swallowed, the sound of her soft voice saying such things went straight to his groin. And his heart.

“I’ll protect you,” he whispered in return.

“I know,” she replied. The phone drooped, and he knew that she’d fallen asleep.

It was nearing 5am. Duncan would be up now. It was time for Paul to call and confess. Putting it off would only make it worse.

He sat back in his chair and dialled his boss. Duncan answered on the first ring.

“You been to bed yet?” Duncan asked in lieu of a greeting. Duncan enjoyed riling him up about his odd hours. Paul had never dared tell him that he just couldn’t really sleep anymore.

His breathing was a little heavier than normal, and Paul wondered if he was at the gym. He’d worked out with Duncan enough times that he could picture him clearly—a big, black man scowling at anyone and everyone while trying to push through the pain in his leg. Duncan thought that no one noticed, but they did.

“Nope. Something went down on the Christine Ramirez case.”

“What? Why didn’t you call me right away?”

“I handled it.” He paused. He should have thought through how he was going to explain this to his boss before calling.

“You…handled it? On a surveillance mission?” Duncan’s voice grew terrifyingly controlled.

“Yeah. Listen—”

“You better have a real good explanation,” Duncan interrupted him. He wasn’t happy, that much was clear.