Talon: Combat Tracking Team (A Breed Apart) (40 page)

The way she fit in his arms amazed him. The kiss had been long enough to sear his conscience. Long enough to tell him he wanted more, so much more. Long enough to scare the living daylights out of him, too.

Perfect. She was perfect. Being with her was perfect.

A perfect formula for disaster.

Cardinal closed his eyes against the thought, swallowed and inhaled the sweet scent of her hair. Lavender. Maybe some vanilla. He hated that he knew those smells because they would forever be ingrained in his mind as belonging to her. He’d never be able to forget her. Forget what had just transpired.

“I love you.”

She had no idea
who
she loved. She didn’t even know his real name.

The question burning against his conscience was, did he love her?

He’d do anything for her. Maybe that was the terror of it all—he’d kill for her. Kill anyone and anything, including his feelings for her, if he felt that would keep her safest. Because suddenly this woman, who was sweet and sensitive yet had an iron will, seemed like a glass rose in his large, clumsy hands.

Aspen drew back and looked up at him again.

Cardinal couldn’t help himself. Or rather—he
did
help himself—to another kiss. So sweet. So willing. He liked the way she stiffened at first under the touch of their lips then relaxed into it. Her hands on his back, fingers pressing into him, deepening the kiss burned the last of his resolve.

Something bumped against his leg. Pushed between them—no, pushed them
apart
.

Giggling, Aspen drew back and looked down. “I think he’s jealous.” When she met Cardinal’s gaze again, she wore a shy smile.

Talon plopped between them, panting as he peered up at them.

Cardinal eased against the half wall, hauling in his reeling thoughts, and petted the Lab. “I think it’s me who should be jealous.” Smart dog. Wedging in, planting himself solidly in a position as if to say, “Back off. She’s mine.” As he reached toward the dog, a low rumble carried through Talon’s chest. His tail flicked.

“Hey. Sorry. That’s normal—he’s not a pet, and sometimes—”

Talon’s bark severed her words.

Aspen ruffled his head and rubbed his ears. “It’s okay, boy. I can handle having two handsome guys in my life.”

In her life…

Didn’t she realize that couldn’t happen? Man, he’d never felt the urge to backpedal faster than he did right now. Fear. No, it was bigger, stronger. He could feel it. Aspen was right. He was afraid of this. Letting go of his strict Cardinal rules was like jumping off a cliff. Free fall. Straight to his death. Maybe even hers.

And the angel flew
.

“Aspen, listen.” Cardinal raked his hand through his hair, groping for some tendril of sanity. Some way to lower the boom. “I…I can’t—”

Again, Talon’s growl leapt into the night. Cardinal glanced at the dog, who pushed onto all fours and walked to the other side, sniffing the air. He barked. Whimpered. Sat down. Looked at her then scooted closer to the wall.

“That’s…weird.” Aspen turned toward the dog.

Cardinal stood, using the distraction to turn the conversation away from his weakness. “What?”

“That’s…I think that’s a hit.” She looked at him with a frown. “But on what?”

The door flung open. Candyman leapt out. “Hey.” He slowed for a second, his gaze taking in the scene. No doubt the entirely too observant grunt knew what was going on. “Downstairs. Burnett’s on the line. We’re moving.” And just as quick the guy disappeared the way he’d come.

Downstairs, Cardinal, Aspen, and Talon gathered with the others. A full ensemble.

“Circle up.” Watterboy motioned them around a laptop that sat on the table. “Go ahead, General. We’re all present.”

“Where’s the happy couple?”

Cardinal arched his eyebrow as he planted a hand on the table and leaned in. “You’re not funny.”

Burnett roared, his broad shoulders bouncing. “Yeah, I keep telling my doctor that.” He pounded a fist on the table. “Lousy, no-good—he put me on a diet! Said my blood pressure is too high.” He wagged a finger at the camera. “That’s your fault, you know. I’m not drinking no crappy Diet Dr Pepper, so get me some answers I can cram into this leak that’s pouring dung into my lap.”

“What leak?”

“Payne!”

Cardinal digested the news. “What do you have?”

“Show him,” Burnett said as he stabbed a thick finger at the webcam.

Watterboy flattened a map between Cardinal’s hand and the laptop’s keyboard. “Here and here.”

“What am I looking at?”

“Caravans.”

Cardinal peered through his brow at the live-feed video. Was that word supposed to mean something? “There are caravans all over the place. I see them every day.”

“Not like this.”

“Why?”

“In and out,” Watterboy said. “Same route. Twice a week.”

“Where are they going?”

“Sliding right past our base to the docks.”

“Cargo?”

“That’s what you need to find out.” Burnett popped the top on a DP can and took a slurp.

“It’s muffed up,” Candyman said, chomping into an apple. Juice dribbled down his beard.

“You’re disgusting,” Timbrel said, her lip curled.

“Hey, hazards of the beard.” Candyman winked as he used his sleeve to clean up.

Cardinal waited for someone to elaborate. He hated being the last one in on the information.

“At first look,” Watterboy said, “we thought maybe weapons.”

“No way.” Candyman pitched the apple into a metal bin. “Pardon me, General,” he said as he leaned in, keyed in something, and drew up images. His thick, tanned finger jabbed toward the screen. “Check it. Those aren’t weapons’ crates, and though there is a butt-load of illegal weapons traipsing across this desert, that’s not a known weapons’ cache.”

“Where was that image taken and when?”

“A half-dozen kilometers outside Omo National Park.”

Pushing up, Cardinal frowned. “Sudan?” It made no sense. Clearly Burnett and Hastings had been busy, tracking the caravan from one place to the next. “Aren’t there gold mines out there?”

“Yeah, but dude, c’mon.” Candyman grinned. “They aren’t smuggling gold. No reason to. Everyone knows that’s what’s there and that it’s being mined. Besides—” Candyman traced a path on the map from Sudan, past the base and to another point. “FOB Kendall is funneling whatever it is through their little camp then giving them clear passage to the docks.”

Cardinal stared at the information, at the maps, at the images. “What else is in that region? Minerals, I mean.”

Watterboy shrugged. “Got me.”

Though the man feigned ignorance, Cardinal had a gut instinct that he could wager a pretty accurate guess. “Gold mines.” He rubbed his jaw, thinking. Actually,
not
liking what he was thinking.

“What is it?” Aspen stepped closer. “What’s wrong?”

“There are gold mines there, just like Candyman said.” He sighed. “Some uranium is also recovered as a by-product with copper, or as a by-product from the treatment of other ores, such as the gold-bearing ores of South Africa.”

“Uranium?” Aspen scrunched her nose.

Candyman whistled. “Yeah, aka, yellowcake.”

Curses flitted on the hot air and from the laptop.

“Hey, get me back on!” the general growled. At his command and a few clicks, Burnett’s round face glared at them again. “Cardinal, if you really think that’s what’s happening out there, then we have to find that—”

“Should be easy. The uranium decay puts off radiation.”

“Think I need you to tell me that, VanAllen?”

Contrite and smirking, Candyman lowered his head. “No, sir.”

“Then shut up.”

“General,” Cardinal said, wanting to laugh, “your blood pressure.”

“Get off my back. I know what I’m doing. And you bunch of girls are the ones blowing my pressure through the roof. Now, get down there and find those crates. I want this solved.”

“Sir?” Cardinal eased into view again. “Think Payne is connected to this? Think that’s why he wanted me out of here and the rest of us locked up on base so we couldn’t catch wind of his little operation?”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. But we don’t have time for guesses. I need proof!”

Cardinal looked to Watters. “Where are the crates now?”

“Port of Djibouti.”

“We need to move or we’ll lose them.”

“Gear up!”

Lina turned, her eyes widening as she lowered the phone.

“Hands up.” He stared down the sights of his Ruger, shoving his mind away from the feelings that had strangled his good sense, stopped him from figuring this out sooner. “Where I can see them.” He nodded as she turned, arms held out. His head pounded—why had he ever trusted her? “You’ve been working me.”

She swallowed. Guilt. Nerves.

“Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that we have the same goal.”

Neil laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“You want Cardinal captured. So do we—I.”

“No.” He cocked his head. “Let’s go with your first
try—we
. Who’s we?”

“I cannot tell you that.”

“Then let me put another hole in that pretty head of yours.”

“Don’t be stupid. You kill me, you don’t get Cardinal.”

“Hey, doll, if I don’t kill you, then I
don’t
get him—because you’re going to take him right out from under me, isn’t that right?”

She had a will of iron. “You will get your answers.” She lifted her jaw. “Then I get mine.”

“That sounds mighty tidy. Too tidy.”

“We’re out of time.” She wasn’t the Lina he’d been willing to spill his guts for two hours ago. The soft, innocent facade had evaporated with her seething anger. “We do this or we don’t. What’s it going to be, cowboy?” She tossed a look over her shoulder. “They’re leaving.”

Neil rose from the chair and walked to the window. He tugged back the dingy sheet and peered along the sliver between the material and the chipped plaster wall. Darkness inside and out made it easier to see without losing time for compensating as vision adjusted to the new light setting.

He was right. “They know.” Then he’d been right not to trust Cardinal.

But he’d been wrong to trust the woman beside him. He’d been sucked into the old romance trap. Bought it. And the island in Arkansas.

Gah! Had he really been that stupid?

As he watched their vehicle lumber onto the road and speed off toward the docks, he heard something. To his right.

Tones.

Neil mastered his body. Forced himself not to betray what he’d detected—she was using a phone. Why couldn’t he see the light from the display? Had she killed it somehow? What was she sending through that device?

What if…what if
she
was behind everything?

They’re heading toward the port
. Fury wormed through him. He’d been right! They had known. Cardinal. Burnett—they had to know. Why else would they make a run to the docks in the middle of the night? A dead weight plunked into his gut.

Cardinal had told him once: trust nobody. Not even yourself. And Neil had failed. He’d trusted himself, trusted his instincts. Believed that this demure woman was innocent. That she really cared about him and was in danger. Classic damsel-in-distress game. But…how? Why? Why would she target him?
I’m nobody
.

Yeah, a nobody with an arsenal of information and secrets.

Cardinal
. What did that mean? General Burnett had used it while talking to Dane. Was it some type of code?

Aspen shrugged off the questions, her mind still racing at the idea of going into a dockyard and sneaking around crates that potentially held yellowcake. She didn’t know enough about the mineral to know if she’d end up with radiation poisoning, so she trusted that Dane wouldn’t lead her into a situation that could potentially hurt her or the others.

Sitting between her feet, Talon panted and seemed to sense the thrumming adrenaline in the vehicle. Leaning into her touch, he whimpered. At least—she thought he did. With the high engine noise and the road chatter, sounds collided. He’d really been off lately. On the rooftop, in action. He’d been through a lot, and she wasn’t sure he was weathering the storms very well.