EIGHTEEN
As Con lowered the phone from his ear, he swung toward the patio door. Beyond the glass, Sophie walked into view. He watched her measured steps as she paced in front of the pool. She left his view for a moment before coming back the other direction.
Fuck. He had orders. And Sophie couldn’t go with them, not this time. He only had two options, and a decision had to be made now.
With no time left, he opened the patio door and stepped out.
Sophie stopped pacing.
“Ryan—”
“Sophie.”
They stared at each other.
“You go first,” he told her.
Turning to him, she took a deep breath. “I considered your job offer, but I think at this time, I’m going to decline it.”
Hell. Not what he wanted to hear, but he didn’t have time to consider how she’d arrived at the decision.
He gave her a slow nod. “I’d like to talk more about this, but right now, I can’t. I have orders.”
Her brows arched upward.
“I have to leave for the dock. The people controlling Deniz want him to move the shipment. Now. I have to leave. It’s our only shot at getting these people, finding Deniz’s wife and getting closer to untangling this web with Bayar and the cryptograms too.”
“What do you want me to do?” Her voice had an edge of worry that sent his body into protector mode.
He took a step toward her and took her hands. “You can go to the safe house and stay there. Or stay here.”
“Alone?”
He nodded. “I can’t spare a man to guard you. Fuck, Sophie.” He hovered over her, head bowed as he battled with what he wanted to do and the order he had to take.
“Where do you think I should stay?”
“Here. At the hotel. There are guards at the door and security onsite. If you lock the door, no one can get to you. This place is a fortress, which is why so many important people stay here.”
“Okay.” She stepped back, withdrawing her hands from his but holding his gaze. “I’ll be here, Ryan.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I’m scared. Just come back to me.”
He grabbed her, snaking his arm around her waist and yanking her flush against him. He planted a hard kiss to her lips that didn’t last long enough.
Then he released her just as quickly and strode through the room straight to the front door. He’d only made it a few steps before he heard her twist the extra deadbolts, securing herself inside.
By the time he met the team at the safe house, they were locked and loaded. He threw on his gear and grabbed his rifle. As he ordered them into the vehicles and headed to the dock, his mind zeroed in on the op.
“ETA?” he barked at Mason.
“Three minutes out.”
Con’s phone vibrated, and he brought it to his ear. His commander’s voice filled his ear. “Hang back.”
His gaze darted around the street. They were only a few blocks away from the dock. “What changed?”
“I’m working with an analyst to see if rescuing this woman is going to become an international matter. We’re not going to start a war over one person.”
Commander Barrett was right, of course. Con understood, but he couldn’t help but think of how Sophie would react to knowing they were going to allow an end to Deniz’s love story.
It was probably best that she turned down the offer to work with Blackout. She wasn’t cut out for the harsh realities of this game.
He pointed to an alley. Mason took the silent order and pulled into the shadowed spot.
“I await your orders,” Con told Barrett, and they ended the call.
Mason turned his head to look at Con, looking for his own orders.
Into his comms unit and to those teammates surrounding him, he said, “We’re on hold, waiting for word from Barrett. They’re analyzing every move we make to ensure we don’t start a war.”
Everyone in the vehicle was still and silent. Not even the rustle of the gear they were decked out in sounded in the cramped space.
Con wagged his head. “A man is detained for taking photos, and one photo is the site of a recent bombing. His phone cloud is full of coded messages.” He ticked the list off on his fingers. “Someone kidnaps a shipping agent’s wife after he refuses to keep shipping bomb parts to the US. And the people pulling Deniz’s strings are part of a gang that sports a geometric tattoo, which also is seen in one of the coded photos we found in the cloud. This is a lot of shit for one op. This is ten gallons of shit in a five-gallon bucket. What the hell are we missing?”
“Nothing is ever easy, but there are a lot of moving parts here.” Mason’s gaze was fixed on the end of the alley. “We never got the intel back on that tattoo. I handed it all over to our contact, but he hasn’t given me anything yet.”
Con looked at him and then twisted in his seat to address Denver. “Follow up on that. It might not be as important as the rest of the details, but anything can help us get closer.”
Denver reached into one of the many pockets on his vest and extracted his phone. While he worked, Con’s only choice was to wait on word from Barrett.
Someone walked past the alley pushing a cart—a street vendor selling food. He watched him, but his mind volleyed between all the data he’d been given, including Sophie’s latest discovery. He sank deep into thought about the military base and jolted when his phone buzzed.
He snapped it to his ear. “Con.”
He listened to Barrett on the other end. “Copy that. I’ll be in touch when it’s over.”
Everyone looked at him.
Con ended the call and gestured for Mason to drive. “Roll out. We hit the docks first and stop that shipment. Then, if all goes to plan, we rescue the wife.”
* * * * *
Sophie’s bare feet pattered lightly on the cool floor of the hotel room. After Con left, she moved her tech indoors and set up on the table to continue work on the cryptograms. There were more puzzles to uncover than a single person could complete in a solid year. If she was going to continue working on the codes, she’d need a team.
She passed by the glass doors overlooking the pool, reached the wall and did an about-face to set off in the other direction. The movement helped clear her mind. All this nervous energy wasn’t helping her concentrate on her work. Not when her lover was out there fighting to keep the world safe.
As she moved past the laptop set up on the table, she threw a glare at the tiny clock. She couldn’t see the time from here, and it didn’t tick either. But she was certain that time was speeding by with absolutely no word from Con.
She huffed out a sigh. She never experienced this with Benjamin. This waiting…this worrying. The only thing she had to worry about with him was who would get the antique books they’d collected during the years of their marriage. In the end, she did, and she loved seeing them on her bookshelf.
But who gave a damn about material possessions when the man she loved was out there in danger?
He didn’t tell her when he’d check in. She could have a long wait ahead of her.
After several more trips from one side of the room to the other, a familiar ping jerked her out of her spiral.
She darted to the computer, placing both hands on the table to lean in.
It wasn’t an incoming message from Con or another member of the Blackout team. It was a new email, not from the CIA.
It was in the cloud.
She dropped into the chair and ran the email through a quick security check to make sure it wouldn’t wipe out her system using some virus. When it checked out, she felt a flutter of excitement. Having something to occupy her mind would make the time pass by quicker.
As she opened the email, her heart beat faster. It was another picture.
A puzzle of many images making up a larger one.
With her stare fixed to the screen, she absentmindedly reached for her notepad and pencil. A few papers floated to the floor, but she ignored them as she hurled herself into her work.
When she enlarged the photo, she issued a soft noise of surprise. If the last image contained a lot of photos, this puzzle had twice as many. She pulled her chair closer to the table for a better view and began scribbling notes.
This image wasn’t a painting but a modern piece of photography. The big photo of a cold, gray building against a stark sky left a chill in her veins. The overall feel of the photo wouldn’t have anybody feeling warm and fuzzy.
She clicked on the right top corner and began skimming over the smaller images that comprised the piece. The first image she saw was a sheet of paper. A closer look revealed it to be a last will and testament, but the name of who it belonged to was blank. The one right beside it was a gray granite headstone.
A third photo was of a dark SUV.
Her blood turned icier the more she studied the piece.
Another photo was an outline of a shooting target, a human with bullseyes on the head and heart.
These were definitely open threats. But to who?
Her breaths came faster. She moved through several more images, all with a similarly ominous feel. As she flipped, she spotted the American flag.
“Oh god.”
Surrounding the flag were military men.
The base flashed through her mind—Fort Leonard Woods.
She was getting close. She could feel it. She could almost taste—
She stopped on a cry as an image flashed on the screen. Her blood ran cold.
A photo of Con.
A much younger Con, fresh out of basic training. His stern expression was unchanged, but he still had the promise of youth in his eyes that had been stripped away by the years of service and replaced by a harder glint of steel.
Except when he looked at her, and his eyes warmed.
Beneath that was another image. This one a death certificate.
When she enhanced the screen to read the name on it, she let out a sharp cry and clapped her hands over her mouth.
Ryan Constantine’s name was on that death certificate. Whoever sent this had been following Con.
To the direct right of that was an image that sent her into a dead panic. A more current photo of Con, standing tall and proud, his legs planted in the wide, confident stance she’d seen him adopt many times. Though he wore a pair of dark glasses and was looking away from the camera, she knew it was him.
So did the person who snapped the photo and added it to this collage.
Her fingers trembled as she panned downward, over the image to the bottom. A single word made her blood freeze in her veins.
Target
Her body jerked from the terror coursing through her. Her nerves shook so hard she wouldn’t be surprised if they tore loose like a tornado wiped out power lines.
She couldn’t contact Con at all. She wished she’d given him a harder time for not sharing the secure number with her rather than giving it to Deniz instead.
She did know the way to the safe house. If she could get there, she would wait for him. And pray nothing happened to him.
Quickly, she snapped a photo with her phone of the images on the screen before she grabbed her purse and stuffed her feet into her boots. She burst out of the hotel room.
The hallway was empty and silent, and she ran the entire way to the exit. She needed to get to that safe house and pray that the team returned soon.
Outside, she spotted a taxi and ran forward, her hand in the air to hail it. It rolled up next to her, and she whipped open the door to launch inside.
“You speak English?” she shot out.
“Yes,” the driver said with an accent.
She sputtered. She didn’t know an address, only local landmarks. “There’s a stone building. On the corner of a square. Do you know it?”
“I think so.”
“Can you get me there? I’m in a hurry!”
“I will get you there fast.”
She perched on the edge of the back seat, her heart slamming. Her hand began to ache and she realized she was gripping her phone hard enough that it dug into her flesh.
The driver took off, traveling away from the hotel. At an intersection, she recognized the building. Denver had turned here.
“Turn here.”
The driver ignored her.
“Can you make the block and go back? We passed the turn.”
He didn’t give her so much as a glance to acknowledge her directions.
At the next road he took a turn that she was pretty sure would lead them away from her destination.
He wasn’t taking her anywhere she wanted to go.
Her gut clenched.
Stay calm.
Though her logical mind gave that bit of advice, her body was short-circuiting in panic. Black spots formed in front of her eyes, and she realized she’d stopped breathing.
She sucked in a deep inhalation and fixed her gaze on the street, locking every turn the driver made into her brain. As they sailed past a sign, she plugged the street name into her mind too.
She stared at the driver’s profile. He didn’t look back at her, but his hands were clamped tight on the steering wheel.
“How much farther?” she asked him, forcing her tone to remain steady and not give away the fact that she knew she was being kidnapped.
“Not far.” He turned his head a little, giving her a good look at his profile…and a tattoo on his neck.
Not just any tattoo.
The tattoo.