Authors: Toni Anderson
Not like me to make a massive error in judgment.
She shook her head at herself. Who was she kidding? She’d fallen in love with the guy the moment she’d seen him. Who did that? What sort of moron took that sort of emotional flying leap just from looking at someone?
There was a science to attraction—humans found symmetrical features more attractive than asymmetrical features. And she could vouch for every last inch of Matt’s face and body being outstanding in the symmetry department—she got hot just thinking about him naked. Maybe humans had an imprinted blueprint for their perfect match that they didn’t even know existed until it whacked them over the head with lust.
But there was so much more to Matt than looks. Everything he’d done since she’d met him had been heroic and worthy. She ground her teeth. Obviously the rose-colored glasses obscured the arrest and handcuffs. She did not want to make a fool of herself again.
Trying not to think about whatever crisis had hit, she used the bathroom and quickly brushed her teeth. The only thing Rooney hadn’t provided her with was a hairbrush so she ran her fingers through the gnarly mess, pulling out the major knots and then gave up and went to find Matt.
Both Parker and Rooney were in the small sitting room too. Rooney pacing, Parker leaning against the wall watching. Scarlett’s eyes went to Matt but she couldn’t read him. A little unnerving, considering what they’d just done together.
“Frazer went to see your father in prison today.” Rooney took point.
Her throat parched. “How is he?”
“Alive.” Rooney’s amber eyes turned compassionate. “He was stabbed by a fellow inmate during his chemotherapy treatment and is in intensive care after undergoing an emergency operation to save his life. Your mom is with him.”
A chill of shock shot straight through her. Her knees gave way, but Matt grabbed her before she fell flat on her face. He tugged her over to the couch and thrust her head between her knees.
“He’s out of surgery and in the ICU—stable for the time being.” Rooney continued, “We believe this attack is connected to your activities last night—”
Furious, Scarlett pushed Matt’s hand away. “If everyone had done their jobs properly fourteen years ago, I wouldn’t have needed to try to bug Dorokhov’s office.”
“I wasn’t blaming you, Scarlett. I’m sorry for everything that’s happened, but frankly I
am
angry. For you, for your father, and for me. The idea that someone in the FBI got away with feeding the Russians information that killed six US agents and got a good man framed for it makes me livid.” Rooney’s face was pale. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, but there was no censure there. No judgment. She should be resting. She should be enjoying her Christmas break.
Tears burned, but Scarlett blinked them away. “I’m sorry.” She shouldn’t have snapped at the few people in the world who were actually trying to help her. “I want to go to him,” she said quickly. “I need to see my mother.” She tried to climb to her feet but when she swayed Matt dragged her back down.
“Your mom doesn’t want you there,” Rooney stated baldly.
A feeling of cold calm swept over her. “I have to be there for them. What if he dies without me? What if he thinks I don’t care?”
Matt hauled her against his chest and rocked her. He didn’t seem to mind about his colleagues, or that she was crying all over his shirt again.
“Putting yourself in danger will not help this situation,” said Rooney.
“What if we’re on the verge of cracking this thing wide open? Proving him innocent? Wouldn’t that be more worth your while compared to a bedside vigil of a man who might never wake up?” said Matt. “Christ, if anyone can vouch for that truth, it’s me.” The pain in his voice yanked her out of her self-absorption.
Other people went through terrible things. She needed to get a grip. Her stomach churned. “Is she okay? My mom? She’ll be worried.”
“Frazer apprised her of your situation. She’s working with him—”
“My mother is helping the FBI?” Everything in Scarlett’s life had gone
Twilight Zone
. Maybe she was dreaming all this?
“He can be very persuasive.” Rooney seemed to speak from experience. She held out a piece of paper. “They decoded a list of six names of people your father suspected of being the real spy.”
Scarlett took the list from Rooney’s hands and dropped back to the couch. Her hands shook so violently Matt took the paper from her, covering both her hands with one of his and giving her fingers a quick squeeze. They’d gone way beyond handcuffs and Miranda rights.
“White, MacGyver, Clarkson, Regan, Weber, and Branson,” Matt reeled off the list. “Shit.”
“According to the evidence logs neither Weber nor Clarkson were part of the team who searched the Stones’ house.”
“Richard Stone had a lot of time and a hell of an incentive to do a thorough job figuring out that list,” Rooney pointed out. “If he thinks they’re suspects they should be suspects.”
All Scarlett could really think about was someone had tried to kill her father, a man already dying of cancer.
“Regan. Is that Jon Regan? The unit chief from TacOps?” asked Matt.
Rooney nodded. “Back then he was a junior agent, now they are all high-ranking FBI agents. All six are still active.”
“Regan’s the one who called me in to see the video of Scarlett pulling the double-
oh
shit at the embassy.” Matt’s gaze was focused on the list. “Why would the guy do that if he had a big-ass secret like this to hide?”
“Did
everyone
in the entire FBI see that video?” Scarlett felt numb.
Parker cleared his throat. Matt looked away.
“At least you weren’t wearing granny panties.” Rooney went with humor.
Scarlett didn’t laugh.
Parker shrugged. “Regan contacted you before they’d identified Scarlett. Maybe he didn’t realize the implications then. Or maybe he was given the information from higher up and not acting on it would make him look suspect. Maybe he wanted to look you in the eye and see if you were onto him.”
“I don’t buy it. I always liked the guy.” Matt brushed his hand through his short hair. “We need to know who set up that initial surveillance and why.”
Parker nodded. “Frazer is on it.”
Matt started pacing.
Scarlett watched him, wishing she could unfreeze whatever was going on inside her. If her father died, none of this really mattered. She wanted him free. To be released, to find justice. To live.
Matt pointed his finger at her and she jumped. “Your original plan. To bug Dorokhov and then see what he said and who he called? Can we backtrack to see who he did call?”
Parker shook his head. “I tried. Russians encrypt the data out of any of their places of business. Top grade military encryption that would take months to break.”
“Can you locate all the places the Russians scramble data?”
Parker’s eyes widened then he nodded. “It might take a few hours, but yes. Good idea. I’ll get one of my people on it.”
Scarlett didn’t understand why it mattered.
Rooney interrupted them. “What’s the most important thing here?”
“What do you mean?” Scarlett couldn’t keep up and she was a super-nerd. No sleep and the terror of someone wanting to kill her whole family had scrambled her circuits.
“I mean, do we want Dorokhov, or do we want the real spy?”
“What do we want?” Scarlett held the other woman’s gaze for a long time. “
We
want the real spy. We want the truth.”
Matt stopped pacing.
“So Scarlett calls Dorokhov. Tells him Maidstone told her something before he died. Something important. Arranges a meet. Says she’ll tell him in exchange for letting her live.”
“Maidstone died?” A wave of guilt and pity for the man rushed through Scarlett. Then she remembered what he’d helped do to her family.
“Scarlett is
not
meeting Dorokhov.” Matt stuck his jaw out and stared down at Rooney.
“She doesn’t have to go, she just has to say she will. Someone with his ego and his sense of superiority means he’ll definitely turn up. Also he’ll want to know what Maidstone said and who it damages.” Rooney shrugged. “Without solid evidence of a crime, we can’t touch him anyway and he knows it. But the reason we do this is not for Dorokhov. It’s to scare the spy into action. We’ll need a surveillance team—and Frazer is going to ask Jon Regan for a personal favor in providing that surveillance team. Our job is watching what our suspects—the men on Richard Stone’s list—do, where they go and who they contact after Scarlett makes that call. Thankfully MacGyver is in Alaska and White is overseas on assignment, which leaves four.”
“Clarkson, Regan, Weber, and Branson. You already talked this through with the boss?” asked Matt.
Rooney nodded. “He’s figuring out the fastest way back from Colorado. US Marshals are guarding both your parents, Scarlett. He wanted to stay but knew we needed him here.”
“What about the BOLO on me?” asked Matt.
“Frazer spoke to the local police chief up in Thornton and managed to get it revoked, but keep your head down in case someone doesn’t get the memo,” said Rooney.
Matt rolled his eyes. “Great. Fuck.”
Rooney pursed her lips. “We need you in DC.”
Matt’s gaze hardened. “So this is it? This is all the manpower we can spare in the hunt for the most dangerous spy in US history? We’re not even field agents.”
Rooney looked from Scarlett, to him, to Parker and nodded. “Yup. This is who we know for sure we can trust, and Frazer, assuming he arrives on time. Basically the plan is to plant the seed that Scarlett knows who the real spy is and see who takes the bait.”
“So Christmas is cancelled?” Parker kept his expression bland, but Scarlett noticed a gleam in his eye.
Rooney narrowed her gaze. “Call one of your choppers, Mr. Parker. Maybe we’ll be home in time for turkey.”
He didn’t reply, but one side of his mouth curled into a small smile.
* * *
Speeding through the
air in the dead of night created an adrenaline rush all of its own. Flying blind was both exhilarating and terrifying. The noise was intense. Vibrations ran through his bones. Memories of old friends and missions he still couldn’t talk about filtered through his brain. Flashes of the past colliding with the present and what could be his future, if things worked out the way he wanted them to.
Scarlett sat opposite him in the near darkness, just the faint outline of her silhouette visible.
He’d already fucked up the start of their relationship, although Scarlett had a hand in the fiasco. He should never have made love to her until she’d known the truth about everything that was going on. Parker was right—for all his crazy adventures over the years he was a rule follower. Even now he was under strict orders not to tell Scarlett about Angel being missing and feared dead. He planned to change that as soon as the situation allowed—when he was sure she wouldn’t race off to her friend’s rescue with zero regard for her own safety.
He’d finally figured something out.
Scarlett felt the same way about Angel as he did about his old teammates. Her fierce sense of loyalty was part of the reason he’d fallen for her. Fallen like a HALO jump without a chute. Whether he survived or not was going to depend on whether or not Scarlett caught him. His odds were fifty-fifty,
if
they found Angel alive and well. They dropped precipitously after that.
The pilot circled around a small landing pad at an airfield twenty miles south of the marine base at Quantico and set the bird down without a bump. Parker jumped out first and handed Rooney down the steps. Matt didn’t know how he’d feel if it were his pregnant fiancée on the job—but he knew Parker wouldn’t be leaving Rooney’s side for this part of the op. They had to stick to being teams of two to watch each other’s back anyway. There were too many people they didn’t trust. Plus, only he and Rooney were legitimate agents of the law and this thing could explode in their faces if they weren’t very careful.
He unclipped his seatbelt, then caught Scarlett’s arm before she went out the door. Her hair had been calmed by a black woolen knit-cap Parker had pulled out of his overnight bag. Her pretty eyes couldn’t be disguised, though she could probably pass for a teenage boy if you hadn’t seen her naked.
Lucky him. He grinned.
“What?” she shouted suspiciously over the beat of the rotors.
He didn’t know what he’d planned to do, but in that moment she looked so in need of not just a lover, but a friend, that he pulled her toward him and took her mouth. Maybe it was foolish, maybe he was letting his guard down, but he couldn’t help himself.
She pulled back. “What was that for?”
“Merry Christmas, Scarlett.”
She swallowed. Emotions raced through her eyes like sparks from fireworks. “Happy Christmas, Matt.” She kissed him then. Quickly, fiercely. Then climbed down, and he was beside her in an instant, steering her away from the dangerous tail rotor, urging her into a crouched run toward the car that waited for them.
Frazer had arranged for his Bucar, a big black Lexis, to be dropped off at the airfield. Matt got in the driver’s seat, and Parker checked it for explosives.
Tracking devices were moot. The whole point of this exercise was they wanted the bad guy to know where they were—or at least to think they did.
The temperature had dropped, the damp, cold air replaced by a low pressure bringing frost from the north. December had decided to hit the deep freeze again just in time for Christmas. Dew froze on the grass, ice sparkled on the trees—it was pretty, but didn’t lighten the tense atmosphere. They drove in silence, the car handling well on the slick roads. Not far from the FBI Academy, Parker handed Scarlett her cell phone. Matt watched her in the rear-view.
Rooney turned on the dome light. Scarlett spread her carefully constructed script over the knees of her borrowed yoga pants.
She dialed the number Parker had assured them was Dorokhov’s personal cell phone, put the call on speaker.
“Who is this?” The voice was gruff, angry, heavily accented in Russian.