Aegis Security 03 - Extreme Measures (18 page)

Eve worked as an assistant to some politician in Washington, DC. Surely once she realized Olivia was missing, with her contacts, she’d send someone to come after Olivia.

But even as she tried to convince herself all wasn’t lost, a tiny voice in the back of Olivia’s head whispered,
No one’s coming after you. You’re not important. What have you ever done that makes your life worth saving?
And then there was the very real fact she and Eve hadn’t spoken in over a year.

Regret welled in Olivia’s chest. The last time she’d seen her sister was at their father’s funeral, when Eve had breezed in for the service and then breezed right back out again, as she always did. But this time, before she’d left, Olivia had been pissed enough to let Eve have it.
She’d
been the one to visit Daddy every day in the hospital after the cancer had spread.
She’d
been the one to take care of the preparations for the funeral and to oversee liquidating what was left of their parents’ estate.
She’d
been the only Wolfe child her parents could depend on in their last years because
she
hadn’t disappeared as soon as life got tough.

Unlike Eve. Who’d shed a few tears at the funeral, accepted the condolences from friends and family as if she’d carried some huge burden, and then had taken off again like she always did. And the saddest part was, their father wouldn’t have cared. Because—according to him—Eve was doing something important with her life, unlike Olivia, who was simply teaching.

Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.

He’d never said those words aloud, but she knew he’d believed them. Because she believed them too.

She swiped at the stupid tear falling from the corner of her eye and felt like giving in to a long crying jag. But a groan echoed through the wall, drawing her up short.

Her breath caught, and she listened, afraid her captors were coming for her again. She wouldn’t survive another beating. Her body began to shake. She wouldn’t make it if—

“Who’s there?”

Olivia stilled. The voice hadn’t come from the hallway beyond her door but from . . . the wall.

She looked to her right, to the wall opposite the window, and held her breath.

“I can hear you,” the voice said. A male voice. A weak male voice, which was . . . oddly familiar. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know I’m here.”

Her gaze locked on a heating vent at the bottom of the wall, near the corner of the room. Slowly, she slid off the bed and crawled toward it, gritting her teeth at the pain in her muscles as she moved. When she was seated on the floor near the vent, her back against the adjacent wall and her knees pulled up to her chest, she finally worked up the courage to say, “Wh-who are you?”

“No one you know.”

But she did. Olivia’s brow dropped. His voice was very familiar, she just didn’t know from where.

“Any idea what time it is?”

“No.” She focused on the cadence of his words to see if anything triggered her memory but came up empty. The only thing she knew for sure was that his voice was frail, like hers, indicating he’d taken a beating or two himself. “It’s late, though.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry I got you involved in this.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you. This won’t take long, I promise.”

Words—words
he
had spoken to her the night Karl had dropped her off at her house after that awful date and he’d come out of the shadows to grab her—echoed through Olivia’s mind. She gripped her knees and sat straight up. “You—”

“I didn’t plan this,” he said quickly. “They made me. They told me nothing would happen to you. I believed them. I’m sorry.”

Olivia’s gaze darted around the barren floor, but she couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing. “Who’s
they
?”

Silence.

“Who’s
they
?” she said again. “I have a right to know who’s doing this to me.”

“Shh, relax. You don’t want them to hear us, do you?”

Olivia stared at the grate between the walls, barely able to think, let alone feel. The man who’d kidnapped her was in the next room. The one who’d started all of this.

“And you don’t have any rights,” he mumbled. “Not where they’re concerned. It’s written on the fucking Constitution. You lose all rights as soon as they turn your way.”

Olivia didn’t know what he was getting at, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was finding out what was really going on, so that maybe—somehow—she could figure a way out of this nightmare. Because she wasn’t so sure help was coming after her anymore.

“What do they want? Why me?”

“Does it even matter? We’re gonna die in this hellhole.”

Panic pushed its way up Olivia’s throat, but she forced it back. “Yes, it matters. I need to know. Why did they—whoever they are—tell you to come after me? What do they want with me?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” That couldn’t be right. “If I was nothing, they would have killed me already.” She knew from the beating she’d taken that they were capable of it. There was a reason they were keeping her alive. When they’d moved her from that container she’d been locked in, the big guy from the van had told her she was now “useful.” “What do I know—?”

“Nothing,” he said on an exasperated breath. “You know nothing. Don’t you get it? They don’t care about you. They made me grab you to draw out your sister. They wanted to take her out, and they used me to do it. But no one ever told me they were going to set off a fucking bomb. I’d never have agreed if I’d known about that. I’m not a murderer, you understand?”

Olivia’s breath caught. And images of Eve swirled in her mind. She didn’t know what was going on, but a kidnapping, a bomb, this house . . . something big was happening.

“Are you still there?”

Olivia’s heart beat so hard, it echoed in her ears. “I-I’m here.”

“I’m not a murderer,” he said even softer. “I’m not. I just . . . I made a really bad business decision. That’s all this is. Business. You understand? I didn’t plan for any of this to happen. I was gonna let you go. As soon as I had the money, I was gonna let you go. I swear.”

Her mind flashed to that dark box. To the door opening and a man standing in the light. Then kneeling down and sliding a plate of food across the floor to her.

That had been him. The man she was now talking to. Until yesterday—or had it been the day before?—he hadn’t been a prisoner. He’d been her captor.

A feeling she didn’t know how to define bubbled through her—a mix of rage and disbelief and horror. She gripped her knees tightly. “What’s your name?”

He hesitated and then said, “Tyrone.”

The name wasn’t familiar, not that Olivia expected it to be. “Why do they want my sister?”

“Because she knows too much.”

“About what?”

He was silent for a moment. Then finally, he said, “Project Thirteen.”

Unease slid through her veins and tightened the muscles in her chest. Against her knees, her palms grew slick. “What is Project Thirteen?” she asked hesitantly.

“It’s bad shit. Let’s just put it that way. Nothing you ever want to come in contact with.”

“And Eve’s involved in it?”

“Unfortunately.” He was quiet a second, then said softly, “Look, if anything should happen to me and you ever find a way out of here, go to the athletic club on Western Avenue, downtown Seattle. Find locker eighty-nine. It’s the only thing that will help your sister.”

“What do you mean by ‘help’ her?” Fear clawed its way up Olivia’s throat. “Eve’s okay, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know—”

Wood splintered before he could finish his sentence. A door crashing open. Olivia jumped, then realized it wasn’t the door to her room. Through the grate, Tyrone yelled, “Hey. No! I already told you I don’t know anything!”

A crash echoed, and Olivia’s heart rate jerked.

“Get up,” another voice growled.

Tyrone grunted. “I don’t—”

A crack reverberated through the grate, followed by another thunk of a body against breaking wood. Olivia couldn’t see what was happening, but she could hear it. The distinct thwack of a fist slamming into flesh and bone sounded through the wall, sending her adrenaline pumping.

“The boss wants to talk to you.”

More grunting. A yelp. Scraping. Then the door slammed shut, and all that remained was silence.

“Tyrone?” Olivia called quietly into the grate.

Nothing. Silence settled over the space like an ominous black cloud.

Shaking, Olivia wrapped her arms around her knees and dropped her head. And this time she didn’t try to stop the tears from falling.

L
andon sat in the front seat of his rental in the shadows outside a row of run-down townhomes in the Yesler Terrace district of Seattle. A smokestack rose behind the aged neighborhood, its blinking red light flashing against the dark sky, and the lights of Seattle’s skyscrapers downtown twinkled in the distance.

He glanced around the packed street with its dented cars and chain-link fences. It made sense that whoever had taken Olivia Wolfe had wound up here, in one of Seattle’s crummiest neighborhoods, but even the Emerald City’s worst didn’t qualify as a ghetto by East Coast standards, and Landon found himself wondering just how bright these kidnappers could be.

A glance at his phone confirmed the GPS coordinates he’d tracked from the last phone call made on the cell he’d pulled from Evelyn Wolfe’s purse had gone to this location. Now all he had to do was wait and watch and see if anything odd stood out.

Two hours passed with nothing more than a few cars sliding by on the street and a couple lights going on and off in the house he’d targeted. Interestingly, no lights flickered upstairs, only downstairs.

His cell phone buzzed.

He pulled it out and looked at the screen, then held it up to his ear. “Marley, you’re up way too late.”

“I’m always up way too late. I have some intel for you.”

“Shoot.”

“The FBI picked up four Chechen terrorists with links to al-Qaeda. The Feds are saying the four were involved in the Seattle bombing, but so far all are claiming innocence.”

“They always do.”

“I also did some checking at the State Department. The Guatemala contract was awarded to Aegis by Assistant Deputy Director Roberts himself. When he found out Aegis had been pulled from the project and that it had been given to someone else, he stepped in and made sure the selection committee handed it back to Aegis.”

Landon braced an elbow on the windowsill and looked toward the dark house. The lights had gone off downstairs. “That is interesting.”

“According to my contact, Roberts was adamant that Humbolt be brought back alive ASAP. Suspicion is that he knew something about leaks within the counterintelligence division. Roberts told the committee that he had the utmost confidence in Aegis to pull off the job. Whether that had anything to do with Ryder or Archer, whom he must have known from Archer’s time with the CIA, I don’t know.”

Landon rubbed a hand over his mouth. This whole thing was just getting bigger and more complicated. If Assistant Deputy Director Roberts was involved in Humbolt’s death, and Evelyn Wolfe had stumbled upon evidence pointing to that, then this mess in Seattle could quite possibly be part of an elaborate cover-up. And if that was the case, and it went way up the chain of command, proving Wolfe’s and Archer’s innocence was going to be a real bitch.

“What about the connection between Roberts and Ryder?” Landon asked. “Do they know each other?”

“Yep. Went to Notre Dame together. And word is, they weren’t exactly friends there.”

“Fuck.”

“Pretty much. Though I don’t know the status of their relationship, it’s not looking good. If Roberts wanted to make sure the op in Guatemala was a failure, he could have easily set this up.”

Landon considered for a moment. “I think it’s time we brought Ryder in on this.”

“Agreed. Though this you might also find interesting. Humbolt’s specialty wasn’t chemical weaponry like we were led to believe. It was biological weapons, and supposedly he’d discovered something big. Though no one will talk about what that something is. All I’ve managed to get is a name. Project Thirteen.”

“Ever heard of it before?”

“No. Whatever it is, it’s hush-hush.”

Landon stared at the quiet, dark house. So far he’d counted three men coming and going. Two had left earlier, which meant there was at least one left inside. No other movement at any of the windows told him that if he was going to go in, now was his best shot. He could sit here and wait to be sure, or he could make something happen. His gut said waiting wasn’t the solution.

“Okay, you talk to Ryder. I’ve got a bead on Olivia Wolfe. Between the two of us maybe we can figure out how all of this is connected. Archer and Wolfe are meeting with her CSIS contact tomorrow, and hopefully we’ll know more about what was on that data drive she was supposed to get when all this shit went down.”

“Will do. Stay safe, Miller.”

“I always do.”

He powered off his phone and quietly climbed out of the car. Pulling the SIG from his shoulder holster, he jumped the chain-link fence to the backyard and quietly moved up the back-porch steps.

A dog barked four houses down. Landon peeked through the windows but didn’t see anything. One turn confirmed the back door was locked, so he holstered his gun and pulled out his lock pick.

Minutes later he was in the house, moving silently through the dark kitchen, his gun in his hand again. The small kitchen gave way to a cramped living area with eighties furniture. Stairs ran up to the second level.

He hesitated at the stairs, looked up, and listened. No sound met his ears. Moving past the staircase, he headed for the hallway that ran behind the garage and the bedrooms beyond.

The first room—an office—was empty except for a desk and closed laptop. But blue-green light flickered through the open door of the second.

His adrenaline stirred. No sound echoed. Gun in both hands, he rounded the corner and scanned the room.

A night light shone in the corner of the room. A double bed was pushed up against the wall next to a nightstand, the covers rumpled as if someone had recently slept there. Across the room, a dresser sat under the high window.

He checked the closet, then headed quietly back to the staircase. The old wooden steps creaked under his weight, but he moved up as quickly as he could. Once he reached the second floor, he scanned the hallway and the three closed doors, two off the right and one off the left.

The first bedroom was empty. The one across the hall was the same, but dried blood stained the worn carpet. After checking the closets and finding nothing out of the ordinary, he moved to the last bedroom.

This one held a rusted iron-framed bed and dirty mattress. Nothing else. A high window looked out at the backyard beyond.

Frowning, Landon lowered the gun.

A body slammed into him from behind before he heard the footsteps. Landon hit the wall with his shoulder, staggered, but kept from going down. He pivoted, looked up. The guy who’d hit him was dressed all in black and hard to see. The attacker kicked out, knocking the gun from Landon’s hand. It flew across the room and smacked into the wall, then dropped to the hardwood floor with a clap. The man swung out. Landon blocked the blow and slammed his fist in the guy’s face.

The attacker stumbled backward, then swiveled quickly and kicked out again. Landon caught his leg and twisted backward. The man screamed. Landon jammed his elbow into the man’s thigh, making him cry out even louder, then hurled him back against the wall.

Wood splintered. Bone cracked against plaster. The attacker crumbled against the ground with a groan. Chest heaving, Landon stepped over him and lifted his body by the shirtfront. “I’m looking for a woman. Tell me where she is, and I’ll think twice about killing you.”

“Go to
hell.”

He was American. No accent. Landon slammed his fist into the guy’s jaw. The man grunted. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. “Not the answer I’m looking for.”

The attacker spit out a mouthful of blood. “Look, I don’t know nothin’, ’kay?”

Landon lifted him three inches off the floor and slammed him back against the hardwood. “My guess is, you know a hell of a lot. And you can cooperate and we can do this here, or I can let the Feds beat it out of you. But I’ve seen the shit they do to terrorists, and trust me, you’re a hell of a lot better off with me. Now tell me about the girl.”

“I ain’t no terrorist,” the guy coughed in a defiant tone. “All I did was let some pricks rent the house. That doesn’t make me no terrorist. I didn’t know who they were until the shit hit the news tonight. I came over here to see what was going on and found you. For all I know,
you
could be the terrorist.”

Landon was losing his patience. He jammed his knee into the guy’s stomach. “The girl.”

The man groaned. “Stop. Dammit, stop, okay? Look”—he coughed—“they had a girl with them yesterday. She was kinda banged up, but it’s not my place to ask questions, you know? They must have taken her out of here earlier. I don’t know where they went.”

“Bullshit.” Landon lowered his knee, ready to nail the prick in the balls.

“Wait!” He held up both hands in a frantic motion. “They said something about a place in Fremont.”

Fremont was an artsy district of Seattle. Way more upscale than Yesler Terrace. “Where?”

“I-I don’t know.”

Landon pulled his fist back.

The man cringed. “I-I have a phone number. That’s all, though.”

A cell number he could track. “Give it to me.”

“It-it’s in my phone. In my pocket.”

Landon reached into the guy’s jacket pocket and pulled out the phone.

“It’s under ‘renters.’ The most recent number. They didn’t give me a name. I just wanted to get some cash for this dump, you know? You’re not gonna report me, are you? I don’t know nothin’ else.”

Landon pushed to his feet and hauled the guy with him. After dragging him toward the bed, he pulled zip ties from his pocket and cinched them around the guy’s wrists, anchoring him to the bed frame.

“Hey!”

Landon shoved on the guy’s shoulder, forcing him to sit on the end of the bed. “You’re gonna sit your ass here and tell the Feds everything they want to know. And if you’re lucky, and you’re honest, they won’t charge you with aiding and abetting a terrorist cell.” Crossing the floor, he picked up his gun and holstered it. “How many were there?”

The man slumped down. He was maybe five foot eight and a hundred and sixty pounds. And the missing teeth told Landon loud and clear that he was more interested in money to fuel his drug habit than anything else. “I don’t know. Three, I think. I only saw three.”

Landon pulled out his cell phone and dialed. Marley answered on the first ring. “Miss me already?”

“Always. Look, I need a GPS track on a number.”

“I can do that. Did you find the sister?”

“Almost.” He eyed the man on the bed, and disgust rolled through him over what some people would do for a quick buck. “Then I need you to call the Feds for me. I’ve got some trash they need to pick up.”

Eve blew out a deep breath.

This wasn’t working. She’d been lying here staring at the ceiling for the last hour and wasn’t anywhere closer to falling asleep than she’d been when Archer had come out of the bathroom and climbed into the other bed.

Counting stains on the ceiling, she reminded herself not to think about how fresh he’d smelled or how damp and muscular his skin had looked when he’d walked out wearing only those low-slung jeans he’d picked up at the mall. So they had a past. So she still felt something for him. That didn’t mean she was going to be stupid.

She rolled to her side and punched the pillow near her head. When that didn’t work, she flopped to her back, the mattress springs creaking as she moved.

“God Almighty, Wolfe. Could you be any louder?”

Great, now he was awake. She heaved out another sigh. “Sorry. I’m just”—
agitated, hot, sexually frustrated
—“keyed up.”

From the corner of her vision, she watched as he laced his fingers behind his head, his arms catching what little streetlight was shining in from outside, highlighting the muscles and planes she’d had her hands all over this morning. “Miller will find your sister, don’t worry.”

Eve scrubbed the heels of her hands over both eyes to block the image of all his sexy goodness. “I’d feel better if he’d just call.”

“He will when he has news. There’s nothing you can do but wait.”

Yeah, she knew that, but she sucked at the waiting game. Which was ironic, because in her line of work, there was a lot of sitting around, watching and waiting. “So Miller was DIA, huh?” she asked, trying to take her mind off how she’d filled all those boring hours with Archer in Beirut. “Not what I expected. I would have thought marine from his demeanor.”