“But sexy,” he responded with a grin. “Don’t forget sexy.”
“Too much for my own good,” she answered with a grin of her own. Her expression hardened. “And don’t think for two seconds I’m not pissed as hell about you not letting me have access to that file. I can crack it, Rook. I know I can!”
Ella cleared her throat. Loudly. “Can we keep it moving?”
Allie laughed. King grunted. Vivi smiled.
“During the course of trying to clear Rook, we also found Jonah Knight. He wasn’t dead at all, but that’s a story for a different day.”
“I’ll finish this, Viv,” Rook said. He glanced at Ella. “Knight and I were on that failed Hindu Kush op. It was a joint team operation. Dresden and another man were the SEALs of the group. Me and Knight were the Rangers. There were two CIA agents with us as well as four Force Recon marines. We were to meet with a tribal chief, Abu Bakr-Kabal, for information on Al-Qaeda and another shadowy group that was making waves on the terrorist map. We couldn’t get a bead on them or the organization, but it smelled bad so we needed the intel. We had about two million on us. Bakr-Kabal wasn’t giving up information for free.
“Once we arrived at his village, sugar went to shit. We were targeted and viciously attacked. Knight, the other SEAL, and the four Force Recon soldiers didn’t make it out. Dresden disappeared, and for a while we thought he was dead. Only the two CIA agents and I walked out. I headed home and continued with life. I never heard anything else about the failed operation or Dresden until Endgame started being bandied around with Vivi. Endgame was the name on the disk Vivi knew of. It was the name of the Piper’s privatized black ops outfit, but it was also the name of the operation we ran in the Kush.”
Something Rook had said stuck with Ella. “What were the names of the marines?”
Vivi shot her a look and put her glasses back on. “Gimme a second,” she said. Two minutes later, she said, “David Small, Warren Gent, Henry Grant, and…oh shit!”
Vivi’s eyes went round, and she leveled them on Ella.
“Drake Cain. No e on the end.”
Ella nodded. It made sense. “In your research of Caine, you never ran into a son?”
“There’s nothing. He’s buried so deep that not even I turned him up.”
“Probably the e,” Ella mused.
“So the Piper, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had a son on our op?” Rook asked, his gaze on King.
King ran a hand over his forehead. “Makes sense why he was buried so deep now, doesn’t it?”
“Dresden betrayed us, made off with the money, is responsible for the Piper’s son’s death, so he sets up an entire team to take the bastard down? Risked his daughters?” Rook asked in disbelief.
“I still think the big picture is unfolding. You forget, he’s lost two children to Dresden, and his last one is in Dresden’s hold. There’s something bigger the Piper is after,” Ella warned.
“Ask him,” Allie said as if it were the most logical thing in the world. “Just ask him. It’s obvious this is much bigger than any of you realize. If people in the White House are doing everything they can to silence and come after you, it’s apparent that Noah Caine is an island under attack. I don’t think the Piper is the enemy.”
Ella agreed. But… “Doesn’t excuse his methods. He’s playing with our lives.”
“Agreed,” Allie Redding admitted. “But outing him at this point doesn’t serve any purpose. And we have no way of knowing who’s friend or foe at the moment. My dad was betrayed by his second-in-command. Best course of action is to just pin the Piper down and ask him.”
“You’ll have to find him,” Brody interjected. “He’s on a tour for the president that’s taking him all over the Middle East and, oh yeah, Russia.”
“How has he evaded Dresden?” Vivi asked absently.
Ella knew this one beyond a doubt. “It’s a game to Dresden. He’s keeping Caine on the line to hurt him. It’s deep between those two. Also, Dresden is part of a group that I can’t get a bead on. It sounds mysteriously like the group Rook was just telling us about.”
“Man, this is a cluster,” King said around a sigh. “I haven’t heard from the Piper in a week. Strange. Worrisome. But we aren’t shut down. We still have access to our accounts. It’s almost as if he’s telling me something without telling me.”
“Maybe he figured you’d discover the truth. Especially now that I’m back with the team,” Ella added with a shrug. “Vivi, I need Jude.”
Every gaze slammed into Ella.
She stood. “If Dresden gets him first, I’ll lose him. And if I lose him, I’ll set the world on fire, team leader.”
“Vivi, do you know where Keeper is?”
Vivi glanced uneasily at Rook.
“I’m right here, Vivi,” King said in a hard voice. “I’m your team leader.”
“Don’t talk to her that way, King,” Rook warned.
“This is my team, Granger.” He shot Rook a hard look. “Tell me, Vivi,” King demanded in a softer tone.
God, these men, Ella thought. Alpha. Badass. But so soft on the inside it defied expectation. She wanted hers back. Now.
“He’s in Ukraine. According to my sources, he met up with Georgia Banks, FBI agent on loan to the CIA for covert ops. She’s known Jude for a while,” Vivi said, her eyes on Ella.
“She’s the one who knocked me out and brought me to Jude the other day.” Ella grimaced. She would not get pissed off that he’d met up with another woman when he’d refused to let Ella go with him. “What’s their location in Ukraine?”
“Sevastopol in Crimea,” Vivi answered.
“Vivi,” Rook warned. “No more.”
“I told him where she was. Right is right.”
