Aegis Security 03 - Extreme Measures (11 page)

The tightness lodged in his chest felt like it expanded, cinching down his lungs, making it hard to get air.

“I . . .” Her gaze slid from his and searched the room, searching, he knew, for another lie.

He squeezed her arm. “The
truth
.”

“I . . .” She exhaled a long breath. “I was planning to run, you jackass. Then I came out here to flip on the news and make sure there was nothing linking me to the bombing when I saw . . .”

“Saw what?”

She scowled. “Your face. On the news. The FBI’s issued an arrest warrant for you in connection with the bombing.”

“Me?”
Disbelief had the blood draining from Zane’s face.

“I don’t know how they connected you. Someone must have caught video or stills of you leaving the blast site. It’s no big deal, though. I mean, we’ll call Carter today like you were planning to do, and I’ll tell him everything. He’ll be able to help. I . . .” Eve’s brow dropped low, and she hesitated, as if thinking through something. But before Zane could ask what she was plotting next, her eyes flew wide. “Oh my God.”

“What now?” What could be worse than the FBI being after him?
Fucking fantastic.
His shitty luck was turning to pure crap right before his eyes.

“No. Oh my God.” She swayed and gripped the back of a chair.

“Eve?” Something wasn’t right. Her face had gone ashen. “What?”

“Oh my God. Olivia. They have Olivia.”

“Who the hell is Olivia?” Zane raked a hand through his hair. He’d had enough. It was time she spilled the beans. About everything. “Start at the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”

“Olivia is”—Eve dropped into a chair, crossed her arms over her stomach, and began rocking back and forth—“my sister. Oh God, they have her.”

Wood splintered, and the front door crashed in. Zane and Eve both gasped and jerked that direction. And looked straight into the barrel of a SIG.

“Son of a bitch, Archer,” the man in the doorway said. “You’re in so much fucking trouble right now.”

Every muscle in Eve’s body tensed, but she was still in too much shock over what she’d just remembered to react. The man dressed in black pants, combat boots, and a black T-shirt dropped his gun to his side and glared Zane’s way. He was taller than Zane, his arms and thighs as thick as tree trunks, and every inch of his demeanor screamed military. “Ryder’s ready to blacklist you, and the Feds just issued an APB for your sorry ass.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know, Miller.” Zane strode to the door and shoved it closed. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. You didn’t have to come in all Rambo-like. You could have fucking knocked.”

Surprise flicked over Miller’s rugged face, and he straightened. “I didn’t know what kind of scene I’d find.”

He wasn’t a threat. He knew Zane. Not that that helped Eve’s queasy stomach. Memories bombarded her. Ones she’d obviously blacked out after the explosion. The image of the purple butterfly on Olivia’s ankle in the window of that cell phone. The van across the street from the café. The smug look of victory in her contact’s eyes when he’d said,
“Very nice doing business with you, Ms. Wolfe.”

The explosion.

Eve groaned on a wave of pain so intense it stole her breath. She dropped her head into her hands.

“Shit, Archer. What the hell did you do to her?”

“Nothing,” Zane muttered. “I didn’t do anything to her. Eve?” Panic filled his voice. A panic she didn’t need right now. “Eve? Tell me what’s going on.”

His hands slid against her arms, and he tried to lift her out of the chair, but the pain caused her to kick out and push against him. “They killed her. Oh God, she was in the van when it exploded, and they killed her.” Tears burned the backs of her eyes and turned to fury as they slid down her throat. “And I could have gone after them, but you fucking drugged me, you asshole, and I didn’t remember until just now!”

She flailed against him, but he held her tight. Tighter than he had yesterday. “Eve, stop. Stop, goddammit!”

Rage turned a blinding red behind her eyes. She wanted to hurt him the way she hurt. Wanted to make them all pay. The muscles in her arms and legs burned from fighting. She’d given up her life for this? No.
No, no, no
. . .

“They didn’t find a body in that van,” Miller said from somewhere beyond Zane.

Eve stilled and looked toward the newcomer through locks of stupid blonde hair that had fallen over her face. A scar ran down the left side of his face. One she hadn’t noticed before. “Wh-what did you say?”

Miller slid the gun into his shoulder holster. “There was nothing in that van except C4 and a homemade detonator.”

“Are—are you sure?” Hope bloomed in her chest, and her fingers, curled against Zane’s bare chest, relaxed and flattened.

“Pretty damn,” Miller said, leaning back against the arm of the sofa. “Ryder’s got a contact at the FBI who’s giving us updates.”

Confused, Eve turned wide eyes up toward Archer.

“Jake Ryder’s my boss at Aegis Security.”

“Or was,” Miller huffed, crossing his massive arms over his chest. “Until you fucking quit.”

When . . . ? How . . . ? A thousand different questions swirled in Eve’s mind. “You quit your job? Why?”

“We’ll get to that later.” He loosened his grip on her arms. “After you tell us what the hell’s going on and why you think they—whoever they are—have your sister.”

Eve could barely think, let alone breathe. But if her sister hadn’t been in that van, then it meant she might still be alive.

She turned to Miller. “Give me your phone.”

“What? No way.”

“Give me your phone,” she said louder. “I need to make sure Olivia’s okay.”

“Eve.” Zane placed a hand on her arm. “Think. They could be monitoring her lines. You call her from here and they could trace it back to this location.”

Eve’s chest vibrated. He was right. But . . . She looked up at him. “I need to know she’s okay.”

Zane glanced toward Miller. Eve’s gaze followed. Several seconds passed, and then Miller sighed and said, “You so fucking owe me, Archer. Not just for this, but for the hot piece of ass I left alone in my suite to come out here and find you. I’ll text Marley and have her look into it.” He glanced toward Eve. “What’s your sister’s full name and address?”

Eve swallowed hard. “Olivia Wolfe. She’s a . . . a teacher. In Boise, Idaho.”

Eve rattled off her sister’s address and waited while Miller typed into his phone. To Zane she whispered, “Who’s Marley?”

“Just the heart and soul of Aegis Security.” When she looked over, he added, “Ryder’s right hand. She monitors and runs all the ops. She’ll be able to locate your sister, don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry” were words Eve was used to telling others, not hearing for herself. Nerves vibrating, she waited with bated breath while Miller shoved his phone back in his pocket.

“Marley’s on it,” Miller said. “She’ll call or text when she has news. Now,” he said as he crossed his arms over his chest, “why don’t you start talking, little lady? What’s your sister got to do with all of this?”

Eve looked from Miller to Zane, but when her eyes landed on Zane’s familiar hazel ones, her chest squeezed even tighter. She didn’t want to tell him the truth, especially after their argument earlier when he’d accused her of seducing him to get away, but she didn’t have any choice now, and maybe . . . maybe it would be better if she finally just told him everything.

She dropped into a side chair and pressed her fingers against her aching forehead. “I work for the counterintelligence division under Assistant Deputy Director Roberts. My job is to ferret out moles within the CIA so the government can build a case against them. Three years ago, I was sent to Beirut because someone in the Agency was working with a local munitions dealer funding terrorism throughout the Middle East. Someone on our side was trading secrets for money.”

When Archer didn’t say anything, Eve swallowed and lifted her eyes to his. Doubt lingered in his gaze. Doubt and distrust. And for the first time in forever, she wished she’d chosen any other profession than this one. Because he so wasn’t going to like what she had to say next.

“You and Carter weren’t the only team stationed in Beirut, Archer, but you were the only one CI was looking at. I was sent to Beirut to take you down.”

Z
ane had to have heard her wrong. “Say that again.”

Eve blew out a long breath and dropped her hands into her lap. “You heard me right. You’d been in Beirut for six months, and the shipments had picked up considerably in that time. My bureau chief was convinced your team was responsible. Carter checked out, but you didn’t. Several large deposits had been made to your accounts, and your supervisor was already concerned about your dedication to the team. Your record up until then had been flawless, but he’d sensed something was off with you on that op, and he was nervous.”

“I . . .” Zane remembered a discussion with his supervisor about his level of dedication, just before Eve had joined his team, but his lack of enthusiasm hadn’t been because he’d been looking for alternate opportunities. It had been because he’d finally realized the life of an undercover spy wasn’t what he’d expected. At least until he’d met her.

He glared down at her and felt that rolling anger he’d harbored against her the last year begin to grow again in his belly. “My mother died of breast cancer. And a few months later, my grandmother. I inherited money. I wasn’t selling secrets.”

“I know that now,” Eve said. “But back then . . . they wanted you checked out.”

“So you lied to me?”

She looked down at the floor. “About my reasons for being there, yes.”

No, she hadn’t just lied about that. He could tell by the way she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “About everything.”

Eve’s cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink, and she quickly glanced toward Miller.

Fuck Miller. At this point, Zane didn’t care what Miller heard.

Miller held up both hands in mock surrender. “Don’t mind me. I’m just here to make sure no one gets killed.”

Eve frowned.

“Answer the question, Wolfe,” Zane said, his patience growing thin.

Eve looked back to Zane and pursed her lips. “I lied to you about the op. Nothing else.”

I loved you, you son of a bitch! Why would I try to get you killed?

He didn’t know what to believe anymore. She could lie with the best of them, but those words—spoken so frantically and with such emotion—wouldn’t leave him alone. His pulse beat faster.

Focus on the facts, dumbass. Not stupid emotions that don’t mean anything now.

Zane crossed his arms over his chest. “What about the arms dealer I saw you meeting with? The one we’d been observing for months?”

“He was an informant, helping us figure out which officers were compromised.”

That answer was way too easy as far as Zane was concerned.

At his silence, Eve looked up. “My job was not to bring him down. My job was to stop the leak within. Come on, Archer. You know as well as I do that sometimes in this business bad things happen no matter how we try to stop them.”

“Bad things?”
Zane’s control snapped. He leaned forward and gripped the arms of her chair, every muscle in his body tense and rigid. “We were close to nabbing that son of a bitch, and you let him go. And he went on to bomb an entire school and kill dozens of young kids. That’s more than a fucking
bad thing
.”

Eve’s eyes flew open wide. “I didn’t know he was going to bomb that school. If I had—”

She was acting again. She had to be. “If you had, what?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t have let him walk away.”

Zane stared hard into her eyes, looking for confirmation of the lie. He couldn’t see it. But he couldn’t see the truth, either.

She clenched her jaw and lifted her chin, her own temper finally bubbling to the surface. “Do you honestly think I’m such a monster that I wanted innocent children to die? I live with that decision every day. I wake up to it at night in a cold sweat. Just like I’m going to wake up to the image of that child lying in the middle of the street next to me in Seattle. Don’t talk to me like I don’t know the cost of the choices I’ve made. I know them all. And I carry every single one of them inside me.”

“Why don’t we take a breather?” Miller pushed a hand against the center of Zane’s chest, forcing him back from Eve’s chair. To Zane, Miller whispered, “You need to dial it down a notch, cowboy.”

Zane’s chest rose and fell as he stared at Eve, his brain humming with questions and memories he was too keyed up to focus on. She blinked several times, looked away from him, and then drew a deep breath and let it out. He tried to tell himself she was lying, that she was making all of this up, but the wetness in her eyes and the emotion he’d heard in her barely contained voice wouldn’t let him believe it. Yeah, she was a good actress, but he’d never seen her fake emotion like this. Not even when she’d walked away from him.

If what she said was true—if she really was with CI—Ryder could get confirmation for him. But that still didn’t explain what had happened yesterday in Seattle or what she’d done to his team in Guatemala.

“I’m fine,” he said to Miller, pushing his hand away.

“Really? ’Cause you don’t look fine, brother.”

Zane glared at Miller. “I said I was fine, and I meant it. Let it go.”

Miller dropped his hand in a “whatever” move, then shrugged. He stepped aside but stayed close enough to get between them if things heated up again.

And Zane wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or upset by that realization. Because he wasn’t sure who needed protecting more right now—him or Eve.

Raking a hand through his hair, he worked to cool his temper. “Okay, assuming you really do work for CI, what were you doing in Seattle yesterday at the site of the bombing?”

Eve’s jaw clenched. “I was scheduled to meet a man by the name of Tyrone Smith. Recently, the CIA has seen an influx of opium and other drugs being imported from places like Afghanistan. The money exchange is going to fund terrorism. Case officers are constantly being bombarded with opportunities that didn’t exist ten or twelve years ago. Anyway, a contact with CSIS—the Canadian Security Intelligence Services—set up the meeting. Smith has connections all over the globe, and through those connections, he’d supposedly come into possession of a laundry list of compromised operatives collected by MI6. I was posing as the front person for a privately funded defense company interested in the information he’d obtained. He’d agreed to sell it to me.”

“Did you get the list?” Miller asked.

“No. Smith was being evasive. I got a bad feeling and decided it was time to turn tail and run. Just as I was about to leave, he pushed his phone across the table and showed me the image of my sister bound in the back of what I assumed was the van across the street. He led me to believe she was in there.”

“How can you be sure it was her?” Zane asked.

“Because Olivia has a unique purple butterfly tattoo on her ankle. I saw it clearly in the image. I didn’t doubt it was her. This kind of guy doesn’t play games. He also knew my real name.”

Eve finally met his gaze. And Zane’s chest stretched tight as a drum when he saw the fear in her eyes.

She looked back down and gripped the chair cushion. “I gave him the money, he called his goons off the van, then he left and I headed for the crosswalk to get to the van and get my sister out. But it blew before I could cross the street. And the next thing I remember is waking up”—she lifted her gaze once more—“with you.”

Zane’s heart beat hard against his ribs. First slow, then faster with every pounding blow.
She lies. She lies for a living . . .

“What—” He cleared his throat because there was suddenly a huge lump blocking his words. “What about Guatemala? You knew my team was compromised.”

Eve sighed and looked back down at the floor. “I didn’t know your team had been set up until it was too late to warn you. Someone in the CIA has a personal vendetta against the CEO of Aegis Security. I don’t know why, and I don’t know who. I just know he wanted to see Aegis taken down.”

Miller looked Archer’s way. “Ryder told the State Department to go fuck itself when Aegis didn’t get that contract in Egypt.”

Yeah, Zane remembered. Ryder had been pissed when Aegis had been passed over for the Egypt job, even though his guys were the more qualified team. That had been a few months before the Guatemala raid. Aegis hadn’t originally been awarded the Humbolt contract in Guatemala. It had gone to a different defense contractor, but at the last minute they’d backed out and the government had come calling.

At the time, Archer had been psyched. Especially when Ryder had allowed him to use his CIA contacts to aid with the planning. Now it seemed like one major-ass setup.

“I was in Istanbul at the time,” Eve went on. “But when I caught wind of what was happening, I called to make sure you were still alive. Not to gloat like you thought.”

“It didn’t sound like you were just checking to see if I was alive.”

She frowned up at him. “We’re talking about a spy organization, Archer. We spy on others, but we sure the hell spy on each other. I’m living proof of that. I didn’t know who might be listening on some back channel, so I pretended not to care. I couldn’t care, because if I did, who knows how many others might have been compromised. I also couldn’t let them know—”

She closed her mouth, and Zane found himself waiting for more. “Know what?”

She clenched her jaw and looked away. Irritation, anger, and something else lingered in her gaze. Something he couldn’t read but that caused his pulse to beat even faster. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Know that I’m an idiot. That’s all.”

That wasn’t all, though. There was something else. Something she wasn’t saying.

Zane opened his mouth to ask, but the ping from Miller’s cell phone cut him off.

Eve’s wide-eyed gaze immediately shot to Miller, who was already pulling the phone from his pocket. “Is it about my sister?” She pushed out of the chair. “Did they find her?”

Miller frowned as he stared down at the screen. “She didn’t show up for work two days ago. She’s been listed as officially missing. No signs of foul play at her house, though.”

“Oh God.” Eve closed her eyes and turned away.

Zane’s stomach churned, and contradicting thoughts raced through his mind.

“There’s more,” Miller said, shoving the phone back in his pocket.

“More what?” Eve swiveled back to face him.

Miller crossed the room, picked up the remote from the coffee table, and flipped on the TV. A young female reporter’s face filled the screen. Followed by a not-too-recent picture of Zane.

In the photo, his hair was short and neatly trimmed, and he was wearing a white button-down and black blazer. An ID badge hung off his jacket pocket.

“Oh shit,” Eve whispered.

“While no group has
yet claimed responsibility for yesterday’s bombing in Seattle,
s
ources confirm this man, Zane Archer, also wanted in connection with the tragedy, is a former case officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. Archer left the State Department a year and a half ago under questionable circumstances.”

Eve whipped toward Miller. “Give me your phone.” When he only stared at her, she said in a frantic voice, “I need your phone now.”

“Who are you planning to call?” he asked skeptically, reaching for his cell.

“My supervisor. Someone leaked Archer’s CIA photo to the press.”

Zane’s mind was a swirl of contradicting information, but Eve’s anxiety got through. “Wolfe,” he said, more for himself than her. “Take a breath.”

She yanked the cell from Miller’s hand and started dialing. “I’ll take a breath when I figure out what the fuck is going on.” Into the phone she said, “Yes, I need you to patch me through to 1-5-7-8-4.” She hesitated, then muttered, “My security clearance is . . .”

She wandered into the kitchen with Miller’s phone, and Zane let her go, knowing she couldn’t get far, too rattled to think straight. At some point, Miller had hit mute on the TV, but all Zane could do was stare at the younger image of himself on the screen, a stupid rookie who thought he’d been making things better in the world when he’d only been making them worse.

Now it felt like the world had just been blown to shit and he was in the center of the fallout. With Eve’s words from the warehouse continuing to ring in his ears.

I loved you, you son of a bitch. I loved you . . .

“Dude. You okay?”

Miller’s hand slapping against Zane’s shoulder shocked him out of his trance. “What?”

“I asked if you were okay. You look like shit.”

Zane felt like shit. He rubbed a hand down his face. “Yeah.” Dropping his hand, he looked toward the kitchen. He could hear Eve’s low voice but couldn’t make out any of her words. “Do you believe her?”

Miller shrugged and dropped into a chair. “I don’t
not
believe her, if that helps. She could totally be telling the truth. I mean, her story makes sense.”

Perspiration dotted the back of Zane’s neck. Yeah, it made sense to him too. What didn’t make sense was why
he
was being tagged in this mess and not her.