Targeted

“If you don’t think you can do this, tell me now. If he senses something’s off, we could be walking into a trap. You need to convince him to meet you. I don’t care what you say, just make sure he agrees to meet. The sooner the better. And remember, you’ve got forty seconds.” That was how long it would take someone to trace the call if anyone was trying. After being tracked down last night, he wasn’t taking any chances.

“I can. I will.” She nodded as if to convince herself and her loose hair swished seductively around her shoulders.

She had that just-out-of-bed, sexy tousled look. He knew it wasn’t intentional either and that just made her hotter. Something he shouldn’t be noticing. “Good. As soon as you hit Send, put him on speaker.”

With trembling fingers, Sophie took the phone from his hand and dialed. She did as he instructed, then held the phone in her lap as it started ringing.

Her boss picked up in the middle of the second ring. “Yeah?” he growled.

“Ronald?”

His voice softened. “Sophie, are you all right?”

She glanced at Jack as she answered, “I’m fine, but I need to meet you. Soon.”

“I thought you were going to get out of town.” He sounded panicked.

“I know but I need to see you. It’s important.”

“Sophie, you can’t come back to Miami. Trust me. It’s too dangerous,” he hissed, his words a whisper.

“I have to. I found some information on Keane Flight that looks sketchy, including pictures I took at the hangar. You need to see everything.”

There was a short pause. “Why can’t you just tell me what you found?”

“I can’t talk about any of this on the phone. People with guns tried to kill me. I think this may be part of the reason. If it is, we need to go to the police.”

Jack was impressed. Sophie kept biting her bottom lip, but her voice was strong and convincing.

Ronald sighed. “How about we meet at Dorsey Park?”

Sophie looked at Jack. He shook his head and mouthed the word “office.” Then he mouthed ten seconds.

She nodded. “No. It’s too public. I want to meet in your office.”

“Sophie, I don’t know—”

“I’ll be there tonight at eight. Be there or I’m going straight to the cops. I’ve got to go.” With wide eyes, she hung up the phone.

“That was good,” Jack said.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Not giving him a chance to argue and threatening with the police was perfect.”

She sighed and sagged back against the seat. “Thank God.”

Jack flipped on his blinker and pulled into a gas station.

“What are you doing?”

“Filling up with gas. Do you mind paying the attendant?” He handed her a couple of bills before getting out of the car.

Keeping an eye on her while avoiding the one video camera outside the station, he started the pump, then used the same phone Sophie had used and called Wesley. He’d be ditching it as soon as this call was over, so he might as well get some use out of it.

“Wesley here.” His boss sounded pissed.

“It’s me.”

“Where the hell are you? You should have checked in by now.”

“I think we might have a leak.”

“What?”

“Miguel Vargas’s men tracked us down last night.”

“And where exactly were you?”

Jack ignored the question. “Levi was with them.”

Silence.

“You still there?”

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

“What’s going on? You haven’t said two words about Levi since I’ve been back.” Truth be told, Jack hadn’t asked either. He’d assumed his friend was on a mission and Jack had other things on his mind. Namely Sophie. While Levi was one of the few people Jack trusted, he hadn’t spoken to him in over a year. Just the way this business was sometimes. Jack had been so deep undercover for his last operation he’d been unable to reach out to anyone once he’d been completely embedded. Not that he’d been in the right frame of mind to do so anyway.

“He went off the grid six months ago. No one has seen him since.”

“Why? What about Meghan?” The gas pump clicked off, so Jack placed it back in the holder.

He slid back into the front seat as Sophie emerged from the gas station carrying two foam cups and a plastic bag. He leaned over and opened the door for her.

“I didn’t want to tell you like this, but Meghan is dead.” His boss’s gravelly voice was strangled.

Bile rose in his throat. “Dead?”

Sophie slid into the passenger seat and set his cup in the coffee holder.

“Yeah. Seven months ago she was murdered and Levi disappeared a month later. He’s been like a ghost.”

Jack started the car but didn’t move. “Shit.”

“Exactly.”

He hated to ask the question because he knew the answer would make him sick. “What happened to her?”

“She was tortured and executed. It was professional. By the methods used, we guess it was the Russians.”

Meghan was one of their best agents. No, she had been. Even thinking that she was dead felt wrong. After nearly a decade of undercover work, she’d finally taken a desk job because she and Levi had wanted to start a family.

“There’s more, Jack. She was five months pregnant when she was killed.”

An icy flash of raw anger snaked through him as the words sank in. Torturing a pregnant woman? He was surprised Levi hadn’t gone off the deep end completely. “Why did Levi disappear?”

“Revenge is my guess, but I honestly don’t know. He sold their home, got rid of all his belongings, and fell off the face of the earth.”

“Is there a connection with Vargas and Meghan?” As far as Jack knew, Meghan had never done any work in South America. If there was a link, it was possible Levi was out for revenge. Or maybe he was using Vargas to get to someone else. That would make more sense.

“Not from her time with us,” his boss growled.

Jack understood his frustration. There were too many variables. Levi obviously had his own agenda, but it wasn’t what Jack originally thought. “Someone on the inside helped them track us. I overheard part of Levi’s conversation with Vargas, and that bastard has a contact on the inside.”

More silence.

“Wesley?”

“I was afraid of that. Someone sold Meghan out, so after her death I began a discreet investigation. I haven’t come up with anything solid.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Don’t call me anymore. Use the same backdoor channel we used when you were in Lebanon.”

Most of his missions were off the books, including that one. And that channel hadn’t been used in years. If anyone was listening to their current conversation, they’d have no clue what he and Wesley were referring to. “Okay. I’ll contact you soon. And, Wesley?”

“Yeah?”

“You should have told me about Meghan before now.” It was a shitty thing keeping him in the dark about