The Spy Who Saved Christmas (7 page)

Reid pushed back the rage a sliver, surprised when an overwhelming tenderness immediately filled the void. He moved forward to kneel next to her, put a hand on her arm to hold her in place. “Lara, honey?”

She stilled and slowly lifted her gaze to him, her expression tortured. “They took Zak and Nate.”

“I know, honey.” He squeezed her hand.

“It’s your fault! You brought us here.” She shook him off. “Don’t you
honey
me.” Her words held a tigress’s growl.

The EMT started tending to the rope burns on her ankles.

Reid sat next to her on the bed and pulled her to his chest, rested his chin on the top of her head. “Hey, nobody messes with my boys. I’ll find them. You better believe it.”

But she didn’t seem to hear him. She tugged free. “I begged them to take me, too. Why wouldn’t they take me? I want to be with my babies.”

He put a hand on her arm to hold her on the bed. “Did they tell you anything? A message to give me?”

“The taller one said you had to hang on to some CD.” She tried to yank her arm out of his grip. “If anything happens to the twins because of your stupid job, I swear to God, Reid—”

“You need help over there?” The cop was coming back to check on them.

“I got her.” He held her firmly, but at the same time made sure she wouldn’t hurt herself with her incessant tugging. “Any clues as to who the attackers were and where they went?”

“Nothing. The ambulance is leaving with your buddy,” the officer told Reid. “You want to go with him?”

“I’m staying. But I want to be notified when he regains consciousness.”

The cop gave a brief nod before disappearing from the doorway.

The EMT patted his handiwork and stood. “That should do it. She needs to rest as much as possible.” He flashed Reid a pointed look.

Of course, even now, she was swatting his hands away, trying to get away from him. “Bad news,” she mumbled.

And while the EMT probably didn’t know what she was talking about, Reid did. She was talking about him. He was the bad news in her life, bringing nothing but pain, over and over again. He didn’t protest her words. He agreed wholeheartedly. And the fact that he had brought trouble to her door once again was killing him.

He stepped in front of the door to block her from leaving the room on the EMT’s heels, then pulled his cell phone out.

“Who are you calling?” Even the question was spoken in a tone of accusation.

“Backup. I need you to be taken someplace else while I look for Zak and Nate.”
And skin anyone alive who laid a finger on them.
The veneer that held him in check was wearing awfully thin.

“Like hell.” She stepped up to him. “Do you hear me? I’m going after the twins. I’m going with you. If you dare leave me, I’ll just get away. I’ll follow you.” She stabbed him in the chest with her index finger. “I can do it.”

The desperation underlying her anger came through in her voice and twisted his guts.

He closed the phone and pulled her hard against his chest. His arms tightened around her on their own. Truth was, he didn’t want to leave her. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. He didn’t want to let her out of his arms.
Ever.
And because that thought unsettled him, he dropped his arms away from her.

“Sit on the bed. Let me think,” he ordered.

She did, probably knowing he was about to give in.

A cell phone rang in the living room. When nobody picked it up after several rings, he strode out to get it. Through the window, he could see the cops combing the front lawn, casting tire molds. He grabbed the cell phone from the coffee table—Kenny’s backup phone that Jen had passed on to Reid, then Reid had passed on to Ben.

“Hey,” he answered, hoping someone was calling Kenny, hoping he could fake his way through the conversation and come away with something usable.

But the call was for him.

“We got the kids. You got the CD. Let’s trade.”

Everything inside him went cold. “Say when and where.” He wasn’t about to let on that he had nothing to negotiate with.

“I’ll be calling you,” the voice said, and then the line went dead.

He swore a blue streak.

“What is it?” Lara was coming from the bedroom because, of course, she wouldn’t stay put. Her gaze went to the pool of blood on the dingy carpet. She blinked hard. “How is Ben?”

“He’s a tough bastard. You’re not to worry about him.” She had plenty on her mind without starting to feel guilty now that someone had gotten hurt protecting her and her babies. Ben had known the risks when he’d signed on. This was the kind of job they both did. When you were on protection detail, you were paid to step in front of bullets, not hide from them.

“Who called?” Lara was asking.

He flexed his jaw to keep it from clenching. “The woman who was killed at the restaurant was supposed to give me something. They want it in exchange for Zak and Nate.”

“You have to give it to them.” She charged at him on unsteady legs. “Whatever it is…”

“I already passed it off.”
How much sedative had that idiot EMT given her?

“Tell whoever you’re working for to give it back,” she demanded, then wrapped her arms around herself and swore like a commando soldier. Which was a first. He’d never heard her say words like that before. A whole new Lara, definitely.

“They won’t. The people I work for don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

She swayed, all the blood running out of her face. He caught her, hating to see her all drugged up like this. He picked her up and carried her to the couch, ignoring her uncoordinated attempts to get away from him. He practically had to sit on her to keep her from running while he dialed his phone and spoke.

“They just took Ben to the hospital. Doesn’t look good. I have Miss Jordan. Both babies are missing.” Saying the words out loud seemed to amplify the emptiness in his chest. He rubbed a fist against his breast bone.

“Got anything?” Adams asked on the other end.

“Ben was in no condition for a debriefing. The EMT had to sedate Miss Jordan. I’ll talk to her as soon as the drugs wear off. I got a call on Kenny’s cell. I’ll call you from that in a minute so you have the number. See if you can trace all incomings and outgoings for the last couple of days. The bastards think Jen gave me that CD. They want a trade.”

“They can want it all day long. We don’t do exchanges with terrorists. Any negotiations will be conducted by our special hostage negotiators. That CD is staying exactly where it is.”

Reid let the CD thing slide for the moment, with every intention of getting his hands on it one way or the other.

“Any idea how they found the safe house in the first place?” Adams was asking.

He’d thought about that on the way here in the car. He picked up Kenny’s cell now from the coffee table, and turned it over in his hand. “I’m guessing the phone Jen gave me has some kind of a locator. Could be Kenny didn’t trust her. Or Kenny’s boss, whoever that is, didn’t trust Kenny. Someone was trying to keep tabs on someone and, by accident, ended up having our location.”

A moment of silence. “Maybe the cell leader has locators in the cell phones of the others. Somehow they figured out that Jen was defecting. Went to the restaurant to see who she was meeting with. Tried to take both of you out. You escaped, and they realized that you had the phone.”

“Which led them straight here.” Pretty much the theory he had come up with. His muscles tightened as he thought of the danger he’d put Lara and the babies in. He was too dangerous for them to be around. Once he found the boys, he would make sure that he set them up as far away from him as possible.

Here came that chest pain again. Once more, he rubbed it away.

“Lara Jordan’s name is in your file,” his handler said, his voice carefully neutral.

Which set off all kinds of warning bells. Reid stiffened. He was SDDU, Special Designation Defense Unit, a covert commando group that worked mostly abroad. He’d been investigating a terrorist training camp in the mountains of Afghanistan when he’d discovered a U.S. link that had led him back stateside to a domestic cell here. Since the FBI was already investigating them, contact was made with the Bureau. And somehow they’d talked Colonel Wilson, the man who ran the SDDU, into loaning Reid out to them.

He wasn’t used to anyone being able to see his file. Then he realized Adams couldn’t possibly be referring to his SDDU file. The FBI had to have their own file on him. And since he’d worked on the Hopeville case with them—although with another handler—of course, they would have that information.

“I know her from the Hopeville operation,” he said, information they obviously already had.

“Are you the father of those children?” came the next question.

Okay, so they’d done the math. Maybe it would have been smarter to say no, but he found that he couldn’t deny his boys again. “Yes.” And he needed to get them back ASAP. “I want that CD.”

“No can do. This is too important.”

“So are my boys, dammit!”

Adams wasn’t giving him anything. He’d always been a cold bastard, the type to never bend. Reid had always hated that, but never more than now, when something personal was at stake.

“You know the drill. It’s two lives against the lives of hundreds or possibly thousands. I’m not going to make any rash decisions here.
If
there’s an exchange, we’ll be handling it. As I said, we have professional negotiators for times like this. People who aren’t personally involved in the case.”

The only reason Reid didn’t tell Adams where he could shove his professional negotiators was because he’d expected exactly that answer.
Keep cool, come up with another plan.

“I want those bastards,” he said, because it was the truth, and because Adams would get suspicious if he gave up without protest.

“And you can’t have them. You’re too emotionally involved in this. You’re off the case.”

Which wasn’t completely unexpected either. Not that the lack of surprise made accepting the words any easier. But Reid knew the system well enough to know that arguing would be futile. He also knew the system well enough to know how to play it.

“I want to keep guarding Miss Jordan. She already knows me. She’s comfortable with me. It’ll keep me out of the way.” Remaining civil practically killed him, but he got the words out somehow.

Adams hesitated. “In light of all that you’ve done for us, okay. Yes.”

“I appreciate it. I have a place nobody knows about. I’ll take her there once she’s had a chance to settle down a little.” He rolled his shoulders to relax them. “So what’s on the CD?”

“Being worked on as we speak.”

“Bob?” He knew the resident code cracker, Bob Barnaby. They’d worked together on the Hopeville case. “Let me know as soon as you have anything.”

“If you promise to stay put and stay out of trouble.” Silence again. “Look, I know this is hard for you. I have a daughter. I didn’t even know you…”

“Yeah. Me, neither.”

“That’s tough. Must have been a hell of a surprise.”

He wasn’t about to discuss that with Adams. “You just do whatever it takes to get them back.”

“You bet.”

He ended that call then rang Adams from Kenny’s phone so the FBI would have that number and could start investigating. Ben must have gotten started on it, but he had no idea what the man had learned so far.

“Okay, this is it. Whatever you find, let me know,” he told Adams. Then he hung up and took Kenny’s phone apart, found the transmitter, removed it and put it in the ashtray in the middle of the table. He switched to his own phone when he was done with that, and made another call.

“Hey, Carly. I have a favor to ask.” He didn’t have to identify himself—his SDDU code on Carly’s display would do that. She was also a member of the unit. “Shoot.”

“The FBI is working on a CD. I need a copy. The guy whose account you’re looking for once you hack into Quantico’s mainframe is Bob Barnaby.”

“Piece of cake.” Carly chuckled into the phone. “Want me to get the cure for cancer while I’m at it? Have I ever mentioned that I’m kind of attached to the idea of seeing my kids graduate from kindergarten? I mean in person, not from pictures while I sit in federal prison.”

“I wouldn’t ask if there were another way. My boys were kidnapped.”

A moment of silence on the other end. “Are you playing with me? Are you dangling an irresistible challenge in front of my nose as a joke? Because if you are, Reid Graham, I’m coming to get you. And you’re not going to like it when I get there.”

She was a pro at sounding like the queen of mean, one woman he would have hated to count among his enemies.

“You don’t have kids. So what is this about?” she drilled him.

“Fourteen-month-old twins, Zak and Nate. Long story.”

“I bet.” The voice had a smile in it now. “All right, you sly dog. But when this is over, I want to hear all about it. And I do mean details.”

He could hear clicking on the other end. She was on her laptop already.

“I’ll call you when I have anything,” she promised.

He set his phone down, his guts twisting. “I’ll bring them back,” he told Lara, who’d just about gotten free. He pulled her back, onto his lap, against his better judgment, and put his arms around her.

Normally, he wasn’t the snuggling kind. He couldn’t say he’d ever wanted to just hold a woman. And if emotional upheaval was at hand, he usually ran for the nearest exit. But he needed to be holding her now. Ironic because she didn’t seem to be able to get away from him fast enough.

He let her go with a sigh after a few unsatisfactory moments.

“Why did you tell those people that you’re the boys’ father?” she demanded. “I thought you didn’t believe me.”

“I was an idiot before. I’m sorry.” He hesitated. He wasn’t the type of guy who discussed his past, as a rule, ever. Partially that came from his job, partially from his personality. But as he looked into her eyes, he felt he owed her an explanation.

“Look, about a million years ago when I was a young pup, I had this older girlfriend. She had a kid already. She wanted another. We gave it a good try. Nothing happened. I figured since she already had a kid—” He shrugged.