“We were afraid you’d tell Miller.”
Lauren jumped in. “If Chad realized he was the target, you know he’d demand to stay in Washington and fight the threat head on. This way we can both keep him safe.”
“By putting you both in the same place? Don’t you think that’s making it a little too easy for Harris? It would be better if you’re kept in separate safe houses.” He was right of course. She’d made the same point to Cooper.
Ed must have realized she was about to relent. He folded his arms and glared at Troy. “You don’t do things the way we ask, we’ll take Miller into protective custody and hold him where you can’t reach him. We can also arrest you for interfering with government agents. That wouldn’t look so good for Hauberk now, would it Mr. McPherson?”
He’d do it too. Ed would call in the cavalry, who would hustle Troy away and convince him to play ball-by fair means or foul-but if it came down to it, they couldn’t press charges. After all, the Brigade didn’t officially exist, according to the government.
Maybe it was the way Ed emphasized his name, telling him they knew he wasn’t who he claimed that had Troy giving a short nod.
Troy held out his hand to her, palm up. “Give me your bloody cell phone.”
Damn it. It wasn’t unexpected; she would have made the same demand. She’d just hoped they’d trust her. Good thing Ed had tucked the back-up device into her hair. “I’ll need to stay in contact with Ed. Otherwise, how will I know when the assignment’s over?”
“Oh, we’ll let you use our phones once we’ve verified everything. In the meantime, I want to make sure you don’t text the location of where I’m about to take you to James Bond here. Or that he won’t use the GPS chip to track you.” No trace remained of the broad Irish accent he’d used earlier. “Then there’s the added bonus that it’ll bug the shit out of you.”
He gestured to one of his companions and tossed the phone to him before turning back to her, his hand outstretched again. “Now your purse, if you don’t mind, Ms. Patrick.”
She handed it over without a word. Other than her lipstick, and her fake ID there wasn’t anything of worth in it. That was a lesson she’d learned long ago.
Instead of him rummaging through it the way she’d expected, he tossed it to the same man who had her phone.
“If this goes wrong, if Chad gets hurt, then I’m taking you out.” Aiming his finger as if it were a gun, Troy pointed to them each in turn. “Both of you.”
His hand firm on her elbow, Troy marched her to the van where he told her to “assume the position”. He did a thorough pat-down, including a sweep with an electronic wand. She held her breath. The Brigade techs had assured them the device didn’t transmit any signal while it was turned off. Andy’s sweep after they’d met him hadn’t picked up the transponder in Ed’s pocket. But she wasn’t sure if Troy’s equipment was the same type or if it was more efficient at sniffing out electronics. To her relief, Troy didn’t run the wand over her hair.
Even so she didn’t release her breath until he handed the wand back to the other agent and gestured to the van. “Get in.”
She climbed in and took a seat on one of the benches lining the side. Troy jumped in and sat across from her, his expression hard. “Lauren Miller-excuse me, Ms. Patrick-” he gestured to the young agent beside him, “-meet Kris Campbell. He and Walters will be part of your primary team.” He narrowed his eyes. “I was supposed to leave you here, but I’m thinking I’ll stick around a while.”
The unspoken “To make sure you don’t fuck up” hung heavy in the air.
The third man, the one who had taken her cell phone and purse, closed the back door from outside. He tapped it twice and the driver set the van in motion.
“Isn’t he coming with us?”
“Nope. He’s taking your stuff on a little ride all their own. Just to make sure there’s no hidden tracking devices in them.” Troy glanced out the side of his eyes at her. “You’ll get your purse back whenever the hell this assignment’s done.”
They drove for several hours before stopping at yet another municipal airport. In the cover of a private hanger, Troy loaded her onto a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter where a second pair of agents waited. One she didn’t recognize, though she guessed from his posture he was either a cop or military. The second she did recognize though: Scott Phillips, the single hostage who had managed to escape the guerillas in Colombia before the Brigade had rescued the remainder. Scott gave her a cool look before turning his attention to pulling out a well-worn paperback. She might have thought him engrossed if she hadn’t realized he’d turned the page only twice in the next hour.
From the buffeting that had her clutching the armrests, she guessed they were flying over mountains but were they the Guadalupes of Texas, or had they’d flown north and were over the foothills of North Dakota’s Black Mountains? Then again, thanks to the nap she’d taken who knows how many hours ago, perhaps they’d doubled back and they were over the Appalachians or even the Laurentians.
At the same time she was thinking of their flight into the terrorists’ camp in Colombia, the young agent to her left cursed under his breath about it being Afghanistan all over again. Guess it didn’t matter what country or what battle, bad weather and bad flights were universal.
She craned her neck to see out the windows and realized twilight had long since come and gone, and all she could see below them was inky blackness.
Scott peered down at the circle of lights that suddenly blazed beneath them and exhaled. “Thank God.”
“Please tell me this is our last stop.” She covered her mouth and yawned in an effort to pop the pressure building in her ears from the change in altitude.
“What? Are you bored with our company already?” Troy grabbed a strap over the door when a gust of wind caught the helicopter and it swung around. “You’re welcome to leave any time you want. No skin off my nose.”
Was Troy still pissed off they hadn’t tipped him off to their plans earlier? Or maybe he was offended on Chad’s behalf? If that was his reasoning, she had no argument. She stared out the window, watching the stars disappear behind the treetops that whipped around in the downdraft of the helicopter’s blades. At least Chad had friends who’d stayed with him this time.
As soon as they’d touched down, the lights shut off, leaving them in the dark. “What’s stopping anyone else” -an attacker- “from landing their own helicopter?”
“Oh, I think we’d find a way to discourage any unwanted visitors.”
“Let me guess, you’ve armed your guards with surface-to-air missiles.”
A dark smile quirked the ends of his lips but he didn’t say anything. Holy hell, how had Hauberk managed to acquire SAMs legally? Just who had Sam Watson fucked to get that type of power?
What was she thinking? He probably obtained them from the same place as the Brigade. Cooper Davis had drawn Sam into his circle without Sam even suspecting what was going on. Or did Sam know about Cooper’s real identity?
That single connection between Sam and the Brigade’s leader sent another frisson of worry through her. There were too many threads hanging on this case, too many possibilities for Harris to infiltrate Hauberk’s network.
A camouflaged guard, complete with infra-red goggles and an MP5 machine gun slung over his shoulder, slid open the helicopter door and glanced around the interior. As soon as he recognized Troy, he touched his hand to his forehead as if he were in the military. “Good evening, sir. Everything’s secure.”
Troy jumped out first then reached up to help her out, his expression grim. “I hope you bloody well know what you’re doing.”
So did she.
She ducked her head as she jumped to the ground beside him. Instead of the pavement she expected, soft grass cushioned her landing. Crickets chirped as she took a deep breath, hoping to get some sense of where they were. The scent of fresh mown grass and damp earth filled her lungs. No distant roar of a highway, no bright lights indicative of a nearby city bouncing off the few clouds. With only the stars sparkling above and no moon, she couldn’t see much beyond the field they were in. Rolling hills silhouetted the horizon, increasing her suspicion they’d gone in a circle and were now back east. Vermont’s Green Mountains? The Appalachians? But where? Tennessee? Pennsylvania? North Carolina? Did it matter? Not as long as Harris couldn’t find them.
