You Only Love Twice (39 page)

“On it.” Chelsea’s eyes lit up and her hands flew across the
keys.

Simon shook his head and took a long breath as though he was
used to worrying about the NSA showing up at his house.

“Phoebe, do you know what they’ll do to you?” Ten asked
quietly.

“I don’t care. He’s involved, Ten. I can feel it. He’s the
connection. He’s the line between Eli Nelson and Hani al Fareed and The
Collective.”

“He’s also a goddamn United States senator with the kind of
pull you can’t even imagine.” Ten put his hands on her shoulders. “This is the
kind of thing that gets an operative killed.”

“Then what are we fucking fighting for, Ten? He doesn’t get
to use us. He doesn’t get to dishonor his vows and sell out his country. And as
far as I can tell, we’re the only ones who can even try to stop him. If I’m
right, he’s already cost me one husband. I won’t let him take another. I’ll
take him down even if I have to go down with him.”

“Bingo. Son of a bitch has a file of recommendations,”
Chelsea said. “Mostly it’s kids getting into military academies, but Ace Monroe
is here. There’s no recommendation for the CIA job, but Ace’s father worked on
McDonald’s campaign for Congress way back when. He wrote the recommendation
that got Ace into the Air Force Academy. There’s your connection.” Chelsea
winced. “He also has some e-mails to al Fareed. They date back years. He asks
how al Fareed’s experiments are going. He knew what the fucker was doing.
Phoebe, I think you’re right. There’s nothing here that would hold up in a
court of law, but when you put it together, there’s only one logical
conclusion.”

Ten had gone a little pale, but he wasn’t arguing.

Hutch stood up. “Sir, I request permission to leave.”

Ten frowned. “Of course. The next plane home will be here in
an hour.”

Theo moved in beside Hutch. “Me, too, sir. But Hutch isn’t
talking about leaving the team or the operation.”

“No, sir,” Hutch agreed. “I’m not going anywhere but
downstairs to where that motherfucker is probably eating breakfast. I intend to
lop off his dick and shove it down his throat.”

Theo nodded in agreement. “He sold out Ace. He sold out Murdoch.
I don’t know why, and I don’t give a shit. He needs to be brought to justice.
One way or another.”

Ten looked at his men. “Do you understand what this means?
What you’re giving up? They won’t let this go lightly. We’ll be disavowed if we
go after this man. He’s probably the very one who’s influencing the director to
call us back. You don’t understand how bad this could get.”

“I’m in. So’s Case and so’s Mike and Boomer,” Theo said.

Hutch nodded. “I’m in and we’ve got Bear and Deke, too.
They’re waiting to come over if we need them. Screw the Agency, Ten. We’re your
team. We follow you. And hell, if it worked for the damn A-Team, I figure it’s
good enough for me. Disavow me.”

They weren’t alone. Ten wasn’t alone.

He stepped forward and put his hand out, reaching for Theo,
who grasped it. Theo shook Ten’s hand and then Ten hauled him in for a hug.
They did the manly back beating thing and then Ten turned and brought Hutch in
for the same.

He took a deep breath when he stepped back and he looked
over at Phoebe. “All right, sister. He’s your man. This is your op. What do you
want to do?”

“Erin, I need you to sweet talk Kamdar into lending us one
of his men. There’s no way we get close to the senator, but I think Albertson
knows everything he does. We need to get him up here and we need to find out
what he knows.” She steeled herself. “By any means necessary.”

“Thank god.” Erin started for the door. “I’ll have that
fucker up here before you know. Please let me do irreparable harm to his man
parts. It’s been a long time.”

Theo practically stumbled, trying to run after her. “I’ll
just go and make sure she doesn’t need backup.”

Ten stared after him. “That is the single dumbest boy I’ve
ever met. Did he not hear her talk about man parts?”

Hutch sank back into his chair. “The course of true love
never did run smooth, boss. I’ve got a list of properties in the UAE owned by
al Fareed Oil and its many, many subsidiaries. Adam’s trying to pull them up on
CCTV, but there’s a lot of blind spots.”

She looked over Hutch’s shoulder. It was a long list.
“Dismiss the large buildings. I need something small and possibly deserted. He
works in private.” And she was going to have to work the same way. “Simon,
could you please set up a room where we can meet with the senator’s aide?”

Simon stood up and adjusted his tie. “Of course. We’ll use
the back bedroom. Have Kamdar’s guards keep the cleaning staff out.” He started
to walk away and then turned. “Give me your list of questions, Phoebe. Write it
down. You won’t be involved in this.”

“I will.”

Ten shook his head. “No. Simon and I will take care of it.”
He stepped up and put his hands on her shoulders. “You don’t understand how
this can affect you. Murdoch does and he would be the first person to beg one
of us to save you from this.”

“Phoebe, I can’t allow it,” Simon explained. “I know what my
partner would want and I know what he would do for me. This isn’t some game.
This is torture and pain, and if there was any other way, I would take it
because it’s not what humans should do to one another.”

“He’s right. This is a sacrifice you don’t have to make.”
Ten’s face turned grave. “I took these sins on my soul a long time ago. I’m not
going to let you do it. Hell, I wouldn’t let Murdoch do it and Simon, you can
be in the room, but I’ll handle the actual questioning.”

“Ten…” Simon began.

Ten shook his head. “You haven’t done this before. You have
to be able to go home to your wife and sleep at night, brother. Hell, I don’t
sleep at all anyway.”

She could see this was a losing battle. “I’ll listen in and
feed you questions if you really think I can’t handle it.”

Ten frowned. “I know you can, but I don’t want you to see me
like that. Can you understand?”

She hugged her brother and wondered how much he’d sacrificed
over the years. He was giving up his career, possibly his freedom, for her and
Jesse. “I do. I love you, Tennessee.”

He nodded and he and Simon went back to set up the room.

Phoebe sat and did the one thing she didn’t want to do. She
waited.

Phoebe stared at the clock. Four hours twenty-two minutes.
How much had he been forced to endure already? What had he been through in the
hours she’d been sitting in this hotel room?

“Stop thinking about it.” Erin’s head fell back with a
groan. She was sitting on the couch, the same place she’d sunk into an hour and
a half before.

Theo stopped his pacing. “How is she supposed to stop
thinking about it? I’m not in love with the dude and I’m thinking about it.”

Kamdar crossed one leg over another and sat back. “I am
thinking of this as well. Mr. Murdoch did me great service once. I don’t like
the idea that he’s being tormented in a non-sexual fashion.”

“Yeah, well you would know all about the other,” Theo
muttered under his breath.

Erin brought her head up and sent Theo a glare that could
freeze water. “Give the dude a break. He’s now bankrolling this whole
enterprise and he put his butt on the line, too.”

Kamdar looked as innocent as a decadent royal could look.
“My buttocks are strong and completely at your disposal, Miss Argent.”

Erin sighed before turning to Phoebe. “Think about nice
things. Get your head out of whatever horror show is playing through it and
picture something nice.”

“I’m not going to be able to think about puppies and babies
right now.”

Erin’s face screwed up in distaste. “Eww. Both of those
things poop. I was thinking about what’s going on behind that door. I bet
they’ve ripped off his fingernails by now. Maybe waterboarded the fucker. I
don’t care what the Agency says. That shit is awful. And beautiful in its own
way.”

Theo shook his head, a look of horror on his face. “What is
wrong with you? Were you deprived of love as a child? Did someone drop you on
your head and destroy the center of your brain that controls your humanity?”

If Erin was offended, she didn’t show it. “Nah. I grew up
with three brothers and a four-star general father. Ma left when I was two.
Hooked up with some academic type. I was the youngest and I was raised by a
barbarian horde. Hit the military when I was eighteen and haven’t looked back.
Look, some chicks dig rom coms and quilting. I study torture techniques, and
that’s why it’s so fucking unfair that I get left out here at the kiddie
table.”

Kamdar leaned toward her. “When we return to my island, I
will bring you many men to torture. I will begin with my cousin. He annoys me
greatly.”

“I’m right here, asshole.” Chapal had taken up the cause as
well, joining Hutch at the computers.

“Ignore him. I do. Tell me more about the things you would
do to a very, very bad man,” Kamdar said, his voice low. “Go into detail.”

Theo smiled. “Yeah, Erin. Kamdar there wants you to do bad
things to him. From what I hear, he kind of likes a little bite of pain.”

Well, at least Theo was happy. According to Jesse, Erin was
the sub and she was pretty hard-core. The only torture she was into inflicting
was on the real bad guys. Otherwise, she wanted to be on the receiving end.
Apparently Theo knew it, too.

“Miss Grant?” Chapal looked up from his system. “I think we
have something.”

Finally. She walked over to where Hutch and Chapal had lined
up a bank of laptops. “What is it?”

Hutch pointed to his screen. “We found four locations that
would work. Two small, unoccupied office buildings and two residences. One of
the residences is pretty big though. It’s on the outer edges of the city by the
beach.”

“Could they land a helicopter there?”

Chapal nodded. “But there is also a helipad at the two
office spaces. We have to consider the fact that they sent him on. It’s
possible they’ve already smuggled him out of the country and into Saudi. They
could drive, though it’s a long way to Riyadh, where they live.”

The door opened and Ten stepped out. There was no way to
miss the blood on his hands and shirt. He was wiping his forearms off as he
looked to Phoebe. “I think he’s ready to talk if you want to have a word.”

She nodded, her heart in her throat. She was trained for
this, too.

She followed Ten into the room and tried not to think about
how Albertson’s shirt had been white at one time.

“Bitch,” he managed between swollen lips. “Do you know what
my boss is going to do to you?”

“Nothing if he wants to continue in his current role.”
Phoebe kept her voice calm and even. “I can connect the senator to a group
known as The Collective. I can also prove that he sold information about our
troops to a man who calls himself the Caliph. If you cooperate, I’ll ensure
you’re not prosecuted for high treason. Do you understand what the United
States does to traitors? Especially traitors during times of war.”

It was all a big bluff, but she meant to make that case.
Chelsea was pulling documents together, going through payments and looking into
the senator’s accounts.

Albertson’s eyes got wide and she knew she had him. “I
didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“But you know something.”

He finally nodded.

Whatever Ten had done had softened him up. “Right now, what
I need to know is where the Caliph is.”

“You’re talking about Hani al Fareed. He’s a crazy
motherfucker. He’s insane and he broke our deal. If what Smith says is true,
you have to know we didn’t know that fucker was going to take Murdoch. Murdoch
was supposed to be dead. When we figured out he wasn’t, he was supposed to go
home. The senator pulled some strings and the Agency was supposed to call you
fuckers home. It’s your fault. You didn’t follow orders.”

She ignored all the problems with his argument because only
one thing mattered. “Where would al Fareed go?”

“He’s got a place on the beach, but it’s heavily fortified.
I’ve been there. It’s got armed guards all around. I can’t go to jail.” His
eyes were glassy when he looked up.

“What’s he on?”

Ten’s face was a complete blank. “A little something the
boys in R&D cooked up. First I gave him a shit ton of pain and then I gave
him something to take it away because we’re friends, right? Aren’t we friends,
Dale?”

The man in the chair nodded. “Good friends. Don’t want to go
to jail. If I tell the lady everything, I won’t die here.”

Ten turned back. “The drugs have the added effect of wiping
his short-term memory. He’s going to wake up outside the hotel with zero memory
of how he got there. Hutch took care of the cameras so our asses are covered.”

Her stomach turned and she understood why Ten wouldn’t let
her be involved past the actual questioning. This was psychological torture,
the very thing that had been done to Jesse. The thing he might be going through
now. It was necessary, but it was ugly and she wondered if her brother dreamed
about it. A dream where he was the monster.

“What do you know about al Fareed’s travel plans?” Phoebe
asked.

“He flies. He’s like a bird. Private jet.”

Simon stood and walked to the door. “I’ll have Hutch look
into it.”

Albertson’s head drooped as though he couldn’t hold it up a
moment longer. “You were supposed to go away. Go home. Go home.”

She stepped away and spoke to her brother in a low voice.
“We don’t have the firepower to take on a compound.”

“We just have to make it seem like we do. In this case,
illusion is more important than reality. We need to do what they did. Distract.
We need some chaos. I’m more worried about the authorities being called in.
We’re not on firm ground here,” Ten said. “We have to move fast and get him out
of there and then we have to split up. We can’t go through the airport. They’ll
look for us there. We need quick transport out of this country.”

They would be on the run and because the CIA wouldn’t
acknowledge their presence in the country, they would be on their own. They
would split up, and she was a little worried she might not see her brother
again.

“Jesse would want you to be safe. Maybe you should go to Loa
Mali with Kamdar’s people and wait for us there.”

The king had already agreed to give them sanctuary. Of
course, he’d actually clapped his hands and pronounced the whole thing a party,
but it was really sanctuary. But Ten wasn’t getting rid of her until they
absolutely had to break up the team. “Jesse can’t always get what he wants. I’m
not leaving this country without him. So we better get ready.”

“Hey, Hutch has something and I was talking to Kamdar about
the exit plan. We’ve got everything ready, but he thinks we need to move soon.
I agree. The Agency knows where we are. They’ll send someone soon,” Erin said
from the doorway. Her eyes lit up. “Oh, he’s so fucked up. Did you break his
nose? Can I break some of his fingers?”

Albertson moaned and started crying.

“How did you get past Eve?” Ten asked with a shake of his
head.

“Didn’t have to,” Erin replied. “Got past Kai. He likes a
little psycho in his chicks, if you know what I mean. And I’m serious. Hutch
caught the chopper on a couple of cameras. He’s almost certain it was headed
for the beach.”

Then that was where they were going.

* * * *

Jesse let his head fall forward as they took him out of the
shackles and began to drag him across the floor. Blood soaked his back. He
wasn’t sure how long they’d gone on. Twenty lashes? Fifty? He’d lost count,
lost all sense of time. He was fairly certain they’d left him hanging by the
shackles for a while.

He thought they would drop him onto the cot, but they kept
going. He forced his head up, his heart threatening to pound through his rib
cage. Where were they taking him?

He was certain they hadn’t left Dubai. He could still hear
the ocean and he’d heard someone talking about the conference. They were still
close, and if they were close then Phoebe and Si would be looking for him. They
would have a chance, but if he got moved to another country… It had taken them
months to find him before, and the Caliph would be smarter this time.

No. Al Fareed. His name was Hani al Fareed and Jesse wasn’t
going to give him that power anymore. Like fucking Voldemort.

Phoebe would be proud of him.

Power. There was power in knowledge, in intelligence. He was
supposed to do that. Gather intelligence. He’d forgotten it the first time.
He’d given in to pain and despair, but he was more than just a grunt. He looked
down at the floor. Polished marble. Expensive. He was in a residence. There
were closed doors to his left and a half wall to his right. Upstairs. At least
two floors. He would have to look out that window to figure out how far up he
was.

They walked past a guard who stood by the stairwell, an
AK-47 over his shoulder. He was lazy, leaning against the wall and not paying a
lick of attention to anything but his phone. Jesse’s bodyguards muttered about
it under their breaths, complaining that the guards here in Dubai were
slacking.

He could use that.

“You need to get this one cleaned up and ready for
transport. The boss will be in here soon. We’re leaving for the airport after
his speech at the conference, so you need to keep this shit calm for the next
few hours,” the larger of the two men said, this time in English.

He was dragged into a much bigger room, this one painted
white. Antiseptic hit his nostrils and he had another shitty moment.

There had been a doctor. How could he have forgotten? There
was always a trip to the “clinic” after the sessions. Couldn’t have the dog
dying, now could they? The Cal…al Fareed would join him and the fucker would
talk.

So much damn talking. Jesse was pretty sure he preferred the
whip to having to listen to that fucker talk about how screwed up Western
society was.

“Ah, Mr. Murdoch. Lovely to see you again.” The doctor was a
skinny fellow with a receding hairline. He spoke English with a British accent,
but Jesse thought he remembered hearing the man was from Pakistan. “It’s been a
while since I had a subject. Our Caliph has been playing by the rules since he
lost you. Put him on the bed. Facedown. I need to clean those wounds.”

Jesse groaned as they shoved him onto the medical bed. It
was taller than a normal cot and twice as uncomfortable. His body ached, but he
knew what was coming would be so much worse.

Could he do it? Could he run if he had the chance? He
wouldn’t let them kill him. He had far too much to live for. This wasn’t some
insane suicide mission. He would take the pain if he had to, endure the
humiliation, but if he had a shot, he would take that, too.

The doctor seemed to be preparing some sort of tray, likely
filled with shit that would make him howl. “I was surprised you would even
place yourself on the same continent as the Caliph. You seemed a bit smarter of
a lad.”

Jesse groaned and pretended to try to move his head. He let
it fall back down, a conscious show of weakness. Let them think he couldn’t
move, but already he felt adrenaline starting to pump through his system. He’d
heard the door close, but not the snick of a lock. He was alone with the
doctor.