Talon: Combat Tracking Team (A Breed Apart) (50 page)

“I saw Cardinal down here with Admiral Kuhn. I had to assume collusion.”

“Assume.” Lance grunted. “You know what assuming does, right, Courtland?”

The man gritted his teeth. “Let me help find her, General. I can do this.”

Yeah, right. And Lance was a monkey’s uncle. “Nothing doing.” Like he would really put the lives of one of his best operatives and an innocent civilian woman on the line. “I can’t trust you, and I have more experienced assets than you.”

“The best bet you had walked out of here.” Courtland jutted his jaw. “I’m the next bet.”

“No, that dog is. And you’re going back to Virginia like Kuhn.” Lance pivoted and stalked out of the room. He’d managed to get Kuhn strung up on charges related to his obstruction of justice and collusion with the enemy to transport fissile material. He just had to make sure it stuck.

Man, he just didn’t have time for anything. He just didn’t care. Didn’t want to stand in there and listen to that traitor spout off his puffed-up, vain-riddled reasons for dereliction of duty. An asset going rogue on shifty information told him the man couldn’t be trusted. Told him the man was no longer fit for duty.

Demons had a way of sneaking up on you, especially ones from the past. If this was what was truly happening, then they were in deep kimchi.

Tselekova. Lance Burnett sat with his head in his hands. God have mercy on Aspen! But they had a chance—a prayer, if one liked to think along those lines, and right now he couldn’t afford to offend—with the dog. If they could just rig a few favors, get over there with Talon, they might have a chance to get Aspen back. Cardinal gave them the name to go after. They had the dog…

“Talon, heel!” Hogan stood a few feet away. Her voice had been firm. Authoritative.

The yellow Lab hunkered and inched closer to the wall beneath the table. Head down, he trembled.

“It’s no use,” Hastings said.

“You’re no use,” Timbrel shot back, glowering.

“I could just kill that man,” Candyman said, pacing and muttering. He’d been primed since Cardinal left an hour ago. In that time, they’d formulated a plan.

“What’s with Kuhn?”

Lance checked his watch. “Should be en route, in protective custody, back to Virginia.” Did he sound smug? That sorry excuse for an officer had put lives at risk—but worse, entire countries at the hands of brutal dictators. Lance couldn’t wrap his mind around it. The very thing they were trained and seasoned to thwart and interrupt—corruption, crimes against humanity—Payne had perpetuated.

Lance dropped into the chair and focused on Hogan, a tough girl who approached animals with more consideration than she did people. Lance nearly grinned. He kinda liked this woman.

“Hogan.” He motioned to the dog. “Do we have a prayer?”

She lowered herself to her knees. “I don’t know. Clearly that percussion grenade affected him, but I am pretty sure he could detect Aspen’s panic. Imagine being able to sense that but not being able to do anything about it, when he’s trained to protect at all times?”

“Yeah.” Candyman stomped closer. “I can relate to that
real well.”

“Why don’t you come off your testosterone trip and help—”

Candyman pounded the pavement to Hastings. “You want to go there? Do you
really
want to go there?”

Lance sat up, knowing by the look in Candyman’s face that things were about to get ugly. It wasn’t personal—well, it was personal. Candyman had failed to protect an asset. The guy would go ballistic on anyone right now, Lance imagined.

Hogan darted between the two. “Hey.” When Candyman tried to skirt her, she shoved him back. “Hey! Get a grip.”

“I’ll get a grip all right,” he mumbled as he skulked away from the others, led off by Hogan like a dog on a lead. His eyes shot RPGs at Smith and Hastings, who took up sides with each other.

The two stood off to the side, and though Lance was no expert, he thought they acted a little cozy. A thought struck him. He stood. “Hogan.”

Hand on Candyman’s arm, she looked at Lance.

“What was the sitrep with Aspen and Cardinal?”

“He was a sleazy scumbag who deserv—”

“Hey!” Timbrel nudged Candyman’s chest. “Stop.” She looked back to Lance. “Well on their way to the altar if Aspen had any say about it.”

Heat churned through Lance’s gut. He came off the chair. “Oh man.” He swiped a hand over his weary face. He angled toward Hogan again. “You’re sure—the feelings were mutual?”

Candyman frowned, easing away from Hogan. “What’s on your mind, General?”

“Trouble.” He grinned. “A Russian storm named Nikol Tselekova.”

    Thirty-Six    

O
ppression.

Despite the late hour, the heat held its fist-hold oppression on the city, much the way this situation did on his heart and life. Cardinal sat on the beach, staring out over the night-darkened waters.

He had her. Cardinal
knew
that the colonel—wait. He’s a general now. Cardinal smirked. Though the man had risen in rank, he would always sit at the lower rank in Cardinal’s mind. Colonel. It’d been the only noun he’d been allowed to use in reference to the man. If he called him father, Cardinal got a beating.

But one didn’t use a nice term such as that with a man like Colonel Vasily Tselekova.

I thought I escaped him
.

There was no escape from a past like that. It shaped his life. More like
disfigured
his life. The same blood that drove his father to be a cruel, hard taskmaster pumped through Cardinal’s veins. For the last two decades, he’d worked to master it. Master the anger. The rage.

He wanted nothing more than to become a better man than the colonel.

Tonight, he completely failed. The way he’d unleashed on Courtland.

Breathing hurt as the memories assailed him. How he felt the feeding frenzy off the pain and fear in the man’s face. The bloody nose.

The busted lip fed the demons chomping on the chains he’d wrapped them in.

Cardinal roughed a hand over his face and eyes.
I let him out. Let the beast out
. Failure. Weakness.

“You are weak, Nikol. I must do this. Can’t you see? Weak men fail.”

Cardinal tilted his head back and opened his mouth, searching for a clear breath. Not one stifled by the suffocating, brutal past that so often felt closer than his next breath. Head in his hands, Cardinal tried to block the barrage of memories. He allowed his mind to settle on one.

“Don’t let them make you weak, Nikol. Show them who’s in control
.
Show them who has the power. Make them obey you, or get rid of them.” The colonel knelt in front of him. Held his shoulders. “You are my son. Destined for great, great things. Great power! Just like me.” He shook Nikol. “You see this, yes?”

But Nikol’s eyes drifted to the window. To the place where the angel flew
.

“No!” The colonel jerked him. “She is where she belongs. You are where you belong—with me. Da?”

There was only one acceptable answer. “Da.”

“I failed her, God.” Completely. Utterly. Stood there while the colonel threw her to her death.
I could’ve stopped him
. But he hadn’t.

Just like now.

No. It was different. There was no proof this was the colonel.

The devil was in the details—quite literally. He couldn’t deny that this had the colonel written all over it. He’d taken Aspen. That’s where she was. In Russia. It was the only plausible explanation with the presence of Austin’s Russian girlfriend. The Russian lettering on the yellowcake crates. B
ELARUS
.

Hand fisted and on his knee, he stared up at the stars. Let the fury build. Why? Why take Aspen? There were many more high-value targets there. Austin. Admiral Kuhn.

Why didn’t he just take me?

Control. This was about control. About making Cardinal come crawling on his knees. Admit he’d been wrong. Made a mistake. Cower and show his weakness groveling over a woman.

No, he wouldn’t grovel to that man. Never. He wouldn’t give the colonel what he wanted. He wouldn’t satisfy the sick need for control and power. That meant he couldn’t go after Aspen. In his career, he’d made it a Cardinal rule to never,
ever
play into someone’s hands. He’d walked and turned the tables. Turned the power.

God…I can’t…go back there. I just can’t
.

Where were the stained-glass windows and peaceful flickering candles when he desperately needed them?

“I am here.”

Warmth spread through his chest. “God…?” What an idiot.
Do you think God cares about you? He has a universe to run
.

An image, searing and terrifying, of Aspen lying dead on a bed of springlike grass ripped through Cardinal’s mind. He tensed, tucked his chin, waiting for the image to pass.

Blood…in her blond hair.

Lips dry, cracked.

He squeezed his eyes.

Her arm outstretched. To him.

“No,”
he ground out. The surreal tapestry spread out before him. Panned out. Not just the ground. The surroundings. Crosses. Stone houses. A wrought-iron fence. Headstones.

“The cemetery,” he whispered. Fire wormed through his stomach and squirmed into his chest. No…no, he couldn’t.

They aren’t the same
.

He pushed the thoughts back. Pushed the past into the great oblivion from which it’d escaped.

“And the angel flew,” he heard himself say.

She had flown out that window. Terrifyingly eerie. Terrifyingly haunting. Watching her slide out of view. Frozen like marble to the spot in his bedroom. Staring at the hole in time and space that had held her not two seconds earlier. The thump—

Oh, God! Please…no…

He’d tried to forget. Tried to bury that memory. He’d stayed there. Right in his spot. Stared at the hole. Then the sharp glass glistening in the early morning light. And the colonel…

Cardinal tasted the bitter herb of vengeance. Yes, Colonel Tselekova took his mother from him. To make him stronger. So he wouldn’t be weak. And it’d worked—just not in the way the colonel expected.

He’d failed his mother. And going after Aspen, having to face the colonel, the man who’d bred him through a mistress…“I can’t. Don’t ask this of me. Send someone.” Anyone.
Just not me
.