Team: Echo (25 page)

“
I’ll give you that much,” Mik said with a shrug.

“
Yeah but I don’t have the tech.” But she was damn good at her
job and they all knew it. “There is something up,” she added,
squeezing James’s hand in hers. “I don’t know what but there is
something.” She had a bad feeling it had everything to do with her
relationship with Dieter and James. That was just all around bad if
so. The brass could bite her ass if they thought that they would
get between her men and her.

“
Well, whatever it is, you know we are all there for you,”
Dieter said. Mikhail was nodding his head as was Gareth. James
squeezed her other hand in a sign of solidarity. “No matter what
they say or do, we have your ass, Penelope.”

Mik opened his mouth, likely to correct him but Gareth shook
his head. “Don’t go there, just don’t go there,” Gareth muttered
with a smirk.

“
Good lord no kidding.” Penny could only take so much of
knowing that her biological brother was all in the know about her
sex life and stuff. A girl could only handle so much before it was
just too icky. “Besides, who knows what it is.” It could be the
connection to Mik that they have found out about or something. Who
knew.

“
Well, either way, we’ll know in just over three hours,”
Gareth said. “Sit back and relax for a bit, we’ve got a forty until
the airfield,” he said.

Chapter Seventeen

The conference room was quiet. All the men were there,
lounging and sprawled in chairs. Every single one of them looked
relaxed and yet completely bored. Like they had better things to
do. She knew it was a front, they were setting the tone for the
meeting on their terms. If only she didn’t feel so damned nervous.
“Relax P,” Mik said under his breath from her one side. “If you
look nervous or guilty they’ll hone in on that and start picking at
you. You need to look bored and like you know everything going on
even when they start dropping surprises in our laps.”

“
I know,” Penny was trying to school her features, but failing
miserably. Cracking her neck by tilting her head from side to side
she then leaned back more in the chair and kicked her feet out in
front of her, crossing her ankles and folding her hands together
over her belly. Finally she looked somewhat relaxed and smiled over
at her brother. “See, working on it,” she told him
quietly.

“
Better,” he nodded. All the men seemed to pause for a moment,
even though they weren’t really doing anything much. Then they all
shared bored looks. “They’re coming,” Mik told her softly. “Six men
and the Colonel, one woman as well,” he murmured. The door opened
at the end of the room just as he finished speaking to reveal the
brass and suits coming in.

Looking as bored as the men Penny watched the people moving
into the room and heading to the front of the room. They thought
that the position was the best position for what was to come but
Penny knew better. If she had to take on this room it would not be
from the front, but that was just her. These people had a
superiority complex a mile wide and they all could see
it.

The Colonel was the only one who didn’t go up to the front,
he stopped between the two positions. “Gentlemen, agent Morgan,” he
nodded to them. “Thank you for coming in on such short notice.
Unfortunately, the powers that be were pretty insistent we handle
this quickly.” He shifted his position just enough that when he
rolled his eyes the brass couldn’t see his expression.

“
Of course Colonel,” Marius said. As their commander in the
field they’d agreed he should field everything unless one of the
others were drawn out specifically. “To what do we owe this
impromptu meeting to.”

The woman in the group moved towards the table and the
Colonel went to lean against the wall. “I’ll answer that,” she
said. “Doctor Feldman has escaped custody and is currently on the
run. Factions that are determined to be in charge over all humans
have assisted in his escape and are currently hiding him from
authorities. He left a note in the cell for you agent Morgan. This
is a copy as the original is being analyzed by forensic experts.”
She slid a sheet of paper towards Penny as all eyes focused on her
when it touched her fingertips.

Penny’s hands shook when she read the note left just for her.
She swallowed and nodded. Passing the image to Mikhail she leaned
back again as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She did
though. Damn if the note hadn’t been succinct and to the point she
didn’t know what was.
I know your secrets
Penny my dear. I am coming for you next. You won’t see me, I will
be part of the shadows. Sometimes the ones that come after are so
much better than the initial ones. I will show you when I have you
under me you delightful treat. I will show you just what the nano’s
can do for a man and teach you your place. See you soon my
dear.

Mikhail read the note before shooting her a look, unreadable
to those who didn’t know him well enough. “So you’re telling us
that you let him walk out of a secure, military prison without even
a blip going off on the radar?” He turned to look at the brass with
a condescending expression. “Who was helping him?”

All the brass were trying for calm but his question had hit a
chord she realized. They were starting to sweat. “We’re not
entirely sure at this time and even if we were, we couldn’t share
that as you know.” The one who’d answered had the most crap on his
chest and looked the most concerned.

“
You’d better find him before we do sir,” Marius
said.

“
Is that a threat?” the senior man straightened in his chair
as if affronted.

“
No sir,” Mikhail said quietly, his tone soft and chilling. Oh
lord, he was angry beyond anything else. “That’s a promise we are
more than capable to see through.”

Penny nodded and seeing as how she had been called out in the
lovely note left from the doctor asked. “Whose blood was that?” And
it had been blood the man had written with on his wall. “It wasn’t
his, there was too much of it. So who helped him and whose blood is
it that is on the wall?” Oh they had a feeling about who it was
that had helped the bastard out and Penny knew that they would be
trying to figure it out as quickly as they could.

“
Unknown at this time,” the woman answered. But Penny saw
something in her eyes. Meeting Mik’s gaze she knew he’d seen it
too. They knew just who had helped the doctor and were keeping the
answers from them on purpose. “The team is working on it as quickly
as they can.”

“
How long has he been missing?” Marius asked all eyes were on
the woman again.

She shifted under the scrutiny and looked like she wanted to
be anywhere but there. “Three days,” she finally admitted after a
glance to the brass.

“
Three?” Penny wanted to beat the hell out of that fucking
woman. Standing she had to fist her hands. “Well it’s a very
fucking great thing that you weren’t named in that lovely blood
written note now isn’t it? Three days would be a hell of a long
time, easy for him to come for you and stake out your home. If you
will excuse us, we have family that live on the compound where I
live and because of you idiots they are in danger because you
didn’t fucking tell us three days ago that this psycho was out on
the loose. When I find out who it is that helped him, their body
will be shipped back to you right along with the good doctors, and
no that is not a threat it is a promise to you from me.” Penny’s
fury was rolling off of her in waves, she couldn’t seem to help it.
These fuckers pulled all of them from their home and that left
Daisy and Honey vulnerable, and that was intolerable to her as well
as unforgivable.

A hand touched her arm and she went to shrug Mikhail off but
he shook his head at her. Then he stood up and looked at the
Colonel. “You’ll understand sir that we’ll be going into lockdown
until further notice. Since you didn’t feel the need to alert us
earlier we will be assuming that this is the cover up it appears to
be and will attend to things in such a manner. Any and all attempts
to come onto my land will be met with deadly force. Friend or foe.”
Turning he nudged Penny towards the door, a hand at her back as the
others stood and followed them out.

She was so angry that she was ready to take someone’s head
off. Because of these fucking idiots her sister in law and niece
were in danger, and she couldn’t even begin to think of how pissed
Mikhail was at this moment. She didn’t say anything as she stalked
out of the compound, the look on her face likely one that matched
her brothers at the moment. She would probably kill anyone that got
in her way just as he would. “The bird better be ready to fly or
one of you better have a licence because I want to leave.
Now.”

“
It’s ready,” Gareth said from behind her. “I just called the
pilots, they are warming the engines as we speak. We can be in the
air two minutes after we board.”

“
Good,” Mikhail said from right beside her. His tone was too
calm, scary calm. “Call Daisy and tell her to set the system, full
perimeter.”

“
Already dialling,” Gareth replied.

“
I’m sorry,” Penny whispered softly. “Because of me they are
in danger.” No it was because of the fucking idiots that thought it
was oh so smart to not let them know of the threat immediately.
“When we get home will they be able to access everything and try to
figure out just who the hell helped him?”

“
I don’t know about them but we will,” Anton said. “We’re
tapped into everything they have and a hell of a lot more. We all
voted that we’re not going to play by their rules when they won’t.
And since they like to screw us over we will do anything and
everything to protect ourselves and our families.”

“
This isn’t your fault Penny,” Mikhail told her. Wrapping his
arm around her shoulders he hugged her to his side as they moved
for the vehicles fast. “So stop blaming yourself.”

In the trucks and headed for the tarmac Gareth looked around.
“There’s no answer on any of the lines at the house. At
all.”

“
Fuck.” Penny whispered and then, “Call Honey’s cell phone.
The one that I gave her for her birthday. She’s got that thing
pretty much attached to her body all the time.” It was a cute
phone, and one with GPS on it. “James, do you have your cell? If so
please pull up the tracking on her phone.” It was bad. Very bad if
they weren’t answering.

A moment of silence and then telling glances. “Nothing,”
James said softly. He frowned a moment later. “Anton, is it just
me, or can’t you access the mainframe either?”

Another long silence. “How the fuck?” Anton burst out. “There
is no fucking way the mainframe can be down. It’s on its own system
with three backup generators and totally off the grid unless you
have a back door like we all do.”

Mikhail let out a string of curses in his native tongue.
“They have a suppressing system in place, something that’s
interrupting all the signals. They’re still there, we just can’t
reach them from the outside.” He pulled out his phone and hit a
number. “Dave, it’s Mik, I need you to gather up some of your
friends, shotguns and lots of ammo. I need you to get out to my
place. There are unfriendlies inbound that I want you to drill full
of holes hard and fast. No, don’t you worry about us. You won’t see
us coming and we’ll be behind you as it is. Get Daisy and Honey
into the safe room if they aren’t there already, stay near the
house and shoot anything that fucking moves.”

Penny rubbed her hands up and down her arms and felt sick.
Shit, this was because of her. She hated it but it was the truth.
This was all happening because of her. She was also pissed because
these fucks had waited three days to pull them all in from the
house and leaving Daisy and Honey vulnerable. She looked at
Mikhail. “They knew,” she whispered. “That’s why they demanded all
of us, and why I got the golden ticket. They knew. They knew that
he would go for them. Son of a fucking bitch they knew.”

He nodded and reached over the seat for her hand. Squeezing
her fingers his gaze flickered. “Yeah Dave, thanks. We’ll see you
in about an hour and a half. Less if they let me drive,” the entire
group in the car yelled a resounding
no
to that. “See you in an hour and
a half then,” he hung up and glared at them all.
“Assholes.”

“
I have to agree,” Penny squeezed Mik’s hand with hers. They
had to ensure that their family was cared for. They had to ensure
that somehow Honey and Daisy were protected. “And let’s hope that
they are safe. Let’s hope that the bastards didn’t get to them so
that Dave and his guys can just sit back and relax because I really
want to kill someone.”

“
I told Daisy to keep trying us off and on, just a text that
I’d reply to with a letter only,” Mik said. “I had a bad feeling
going into this, especially since they pulled everyone with
military training off the farm. So I told her if she couldn’t reach
me or I didn’t reply inside of two minutes to lock down the farm.
Dave will have a hell of a time getting in but, with the map I just
sent him, he has one clear path. Hopefully he and the others don’t
stray too much.” Penny knew it all depended on Daisy having set the
farms security system. A lot depended on that, too much. They were
slamming to a stop, all doors thrown open and everyone racing for
the plane in the next minute.