Deceptive Treasures: Slye Temp Book 5 (14 page)

“No.”

Her breathing tripped up to hyperventilation level. He reached into a side pocket on her seat and found a bag for airsickness. Opening it up, he moved it toward her face.

She jerked back
. “Get ... away from me.”  That came out with a gasp between each word.

“Does flying make you sick?”

Her jaw muscles kept flexing with the strain of her trying to keep quiet and struggle with every breath. “Go. Away.”

“No,” he said gently
. “Talk to me.”  He had to consider that this might be nothing but a ploy to get her wrists freed.

The shaking intensified.

Her pale blue eyes were unfocused.
That
didn’t look like an act. She was going to black out from not getting enough oxygen any minute now.

He lifted the bag to her face and told her to breathe into it
. This time she did, over and over, but the shaking wasn’t getting any better. This was full-blown panic attack.

Tossing the bag aside, he put his fingers under her chin, turning her to face him
. “Tell me what you can, Jin. I’ll help you. I promise.”

She looked up at him with so much fear and pain he felt it slam him in his abdomen
. Her shoulders were lurching forward and back with trying to breathe. “Airplane...” More hard breathing. “Dangerous.”

Ah, shit. Pteromerhanophobia
. He knew the name because his sister Hannah feared flying and nicknamed her phobia terra-Hannah syndrome—as in terrified Hannah. Jin had probably never been on an airplane before now.

She shoved her bound hands to her face and rocked.

Hannah had told Tanner what not to say when someone had a panic attack, especially on an airplane.

Never say to calm down. That was like telling someone with a gash in his chest to stop bleeding
.

Never tell them their fear is irrational. And he shouldn’t tell them to just stop it unless he wanted a voodoo doll created in his likeness
.

Just thinking of Hannah and the idea of his sister’s hands bound while she panicked turned his stomach inside out
.

Screw this.

Tanner dug out a pocketknife and used it to slice the flex-cuff on Jin’s wrists. He’d followed protocol for transporting someone of unconfirmed identity who’d appeared unexpectedly during a mission.

There wasn’t
actually
a protocol for that so much as Sabrina’s order to do so. That was the only reason he’d sucked it up and handcuffed Jin.

Yep, that had killed another part of his soul.

Sabrina wasn’t here right now and this was still Tanner’s operation. She could rip him a new one later.

He dropped from a squat to land on his knees and pulled Jin to him.

She was stiff at first, but her fear was so strong it apparently overrode any pride she had that would make her refuse his help after he’d handcuffed her.

He rubbed her back, whispering to her to take it easy and breathe
. “Count with me. One, two, three ... something.”

Not a word at first then she mumbled, “Four ... five.”

She’d gasp then count a little more with him urging her on. Her breathing slowly leveled out and the shaking began to subside. He kept holding her and rubbing her back because, well, he liked it. She was warm and soft.

When was the last time he’d held warm and soft?

Too damned long ago.

Allie, the soul-eater, had screwed with his mind
. After her, he’d only been interested in fast, hard and no long goodbyes. He thought too much of the nice girls his mom and sisters kept trying to pawn off on him to ever date one. A prick like he was needed to stick with the cold ones who also wanted fast, hard and
see ya, thanks for the fun
.

But the female in his arms didn’t fit in either of those groups
.

She’d saved their bacon and he’d handcuffed her like a criminal
.

He’d be pissed too if that had happened to him.

And now she’d had to admit to a phobia in front of him, when she was not only furious with him, but probably trusted him about as much as a pet rattlesnake.

In complete conflict with Jin’s initial reaction to his touching her, she turned cuddly as a baby kitten.

Where had her fury gone?

He got his answer when he heard a soft snore
. Exhaustion had drained the fight out of her. He kissed her hair and picked her up, then looked around belatedly to see if anyone was watching.

A tiny reading light on a stem glowed near Margaux. She was facing in his direction, watching
. He’d never hear the end of this.

She stood and walked silently through the group of dead-to-the-world bodies and came back to him
. Now was not the time for verbal warfare with her.

Without a word, she opened Jin’s chair to recline position and stepped away, but not without sliding a smirk at him
.

Tanner placed Jin down carefully, hoping she wouldn’t wake anytime soon and have to face her fear again
. He’d ask Blade to give her something to handle the last leg of this trip from Los Angeles to Atlanta. They’d stop just long enough to fuel and go.

Margaux dug around in another compartment and handed him a blanket
. She could have put it on Jin herself, but no, she just held it out with a look of I’ve-got-your-number on her face.

He covered Jin and followed Margaux back to where Logan was sprawled across the sofa
.

Margaux dug out an armful of blankets
. She tossed one at Tanner then dropped one in the empty chair next to his and used the last one to cover Logan. She smoothed her hand over Logan’s face with a tenderness Tanner had never witnessed when she’d been on the Slye teams.

He’d have jerked her chain over it, but it made him feel good to see her happy. She used to bust his chops constantly in the Slye Temp war room. It irritated the hell out of him until Tanner realized that was her version of bonding.

Until he realized how very alone she’d been.

Anything that hinted of real emotion sent her racing in the opposite direction.

The Duke, as she was affectionately known, had been one of the toughest and most dependable agents he’d ever worked with, but she’d been hollow inside. Logan changed that and gave her a chance at a real life.

Tanner would overlook any asshattery from Logan for that reason alone.

When Margaux settled across from him and shook the blanket over her legs, she lifted a face empty of all humor to Tanner. “You can’t save them all, cowboy.”

“What are you saying?”

“The people in trouble. I’m slowly learning that you just save as many as you can and that has to be enough.”

“I know that.”

Margaux’s steady gaze questioned if he
accepted
that truth. She mused on it a few seconds and added, “Everything about her is suspicious.”

“Yep.”

“If they think she’s a spy or a plant, they’ll lock her up. She’ll never go home and she’ll never be free in our country.”

That was why Tanner felt claws ripping through his insides
. Jin needed help, but there wasn’t a thing he could do for her once he handed her off.

Chapter Sixteen

At the
Pentagon ...

The General lifted his head from reviewing the budget for another prototype stealth aircraft with some impressive capabilities. The person he’d been waiting for stood in his office doorway to report in.

He dropped his pen and leaned back. “Close the door, H.P.” 

H.P., which stood for Huang Phon, stepped inside and made his way to the leather chair that faced the desk. He was in the State Department and overseeing the secret mission to get two physicists out of North Korea.

Nodding politely first, H.P. began in a cultured voice gained from growing up in the US. “I have news on our project
. The two physicists escaped Pyongyang, but not through the anticipated route where we could intercept them before they arrived here.”

“What
? Find those two and bring them in.” The General slammed his palm on his desktop. “I got you this State Department position so that something like this would
not
happen.” 

“The contractor handling the extraction is waiting on word from her people.”

“Her? Who is this contractor?”

“Sabrina Slye
. She executed classified work for the CIA at one time, but dropped out of sight for a while after a disagreement on her last mission for the spooks. Now she is in Atlanta, where her cover company caters to corporations and select clientele who require specialized security.”

The General leaned forward and growled, “You told me you had a way to bring them here without tying up any funds. No paperwork
. Why’d you choose her outfit?”

“She owed the DEA a mission and the DEA owed us a favor
. You said you didn’t want the military involved, sir. Sending Sabrina’s people fulfilled that requirement. I spoke to the Slye woman moments ago and she assured me that her people were bringing the two physicists out alive.”

The General grunted his approval
. He’d spent a fat chunk of money and favors getting H.P. into a position that afforded The General a layer between him and operations such as this one.

“What happened to the exit route we arranged, H.P.?”  The smugglers were to bring the two physicists into South Korea, where The General had his man Len Rikker and a team ready to capture them and take them to a secret location where The General would put them to work
. Somewhere no country would interfere.

H.P. explained, “It appears someone betrayed the plan.”

Who would have done that? If the DPRK knew about the defection, the men would have been shot on sight or captured and thrown in a prison camp at minimum.

Had Wayan caught wind of this operation?

Wayan was a high-ranking Chinese dignitary, but he was also a fanatic searching for five artifacts that he—and a squirrely group known as the Orion Hunters—believed prophesized a final conflict, aka World War III.

The crap some people put their faith in was amazing.

When one of The General’s associates, a CIA spook he’d activated for “special” jobs, stumbled on the Orion group two years ago, The General tapped resources with deep pockets to track down one of the five artifacts. Then he’d used that carrot to open a dialogue with Wayan and form their private, secret boy’s club—Czarion.

Or it
had
been a boy’s club
and
secret before that damned Chatton came strutting in out of the blue.

She possessed one of the five rare artifacts and used that to coerce her way inside Czarion, so they were now a trio
. She was a British ghost who had destroyed any trail to her true identity, but he and Wayan knew she’d been MI6 at one time. Maybe still was.

And he doubted that she believed the Orion Hunter prophecy mumbo jumbo any more than he did
.

Wayan
was
the true fanatic, a nutcase just dangerous enough to start a war based on a bunch of ancient writing.

“Sir? What now?” H.P. didn’t know him as The General, because he wasn’t actually a general
. That was just a moniker he used primarily with Wayan and Chatton.

“Get your hands on those physicists as soon as they hit US soil
. I don’t want anyone else talking to them until I’ve had them questioned.”  Getting them to Len Rikker now would be tricky. Rikker was yet another spook—former CIA—and Wayan had paid to save him when he got captured in the UK two years back.

H.P.’s smooth forehead folded into a frown
. “But, sir, they believe they’re defecting.”

“Of course they’re defecting,” The General reassured his pussy state guy
. “But I need to know this isn’t a plan for North Korea to game us. Once my people have a chance to talk to them and are convinced they will provide significant information, we’ll give them asylum and put them in protective custody.” 

H.P. was writing notes on that little notepad he carried everywhere instead of an electronic device
. He said, “I see. Very good. We do need to debrief them as soon as they arrive and once they understand protective custody they’ll feel safe.”

The General gave an abrupt head nod that dismissed H.P.

Debrief? Yeah, those two would be debriefed in the bowels of Quantico. He wanted to make sure the Norks had the information they claimed and had no chance of accusing the US of kidnapping them.

That would start an international conflict that would bring China and Russia into the picture.

Anything was possible when dealing with someone from the DPRK.

The physicists had no worries about being safe
. They’d never walk free again to be a target since this entire operation was off the books.

There would be no one to complain to since those two were not entering this country through diplomatic channels
.