Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
One month later…
Diana drove down the long dirt road, searching for the turn off, her heart thumping the closer she got.
Was she really doing this? Was she really attempting to join Viktor’s followers? To become one of them?
Yes, she was. This gathering on a remote farm was a recruiting event, and she’d managed to get invited by a guy who’d been trying to get in her pants.
He’d wanted to ride together, but she’d said she had to work and she’d meet him there.
Thankfully, he’d texted her burner an hour ago to say he’d been called in for a shift and he wouldn’t be there after all. One less thing to worry about.
She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for today, but she hoped to be invited back—and not by the guy trying to get in her pants.
Nobody would openly talk about the real plan at this gathering, and she suspected there would probably be just as many people present for the shooting and partying as for the real cause.
Disgruntled people became converts, and converts were what Viktor’s movement wanted. She had no doubt he had his own people watching and sorting through the prospective members, deciding who had staying power.
Who could be groomed. Turned.
You shouldn’t be doing this.
It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that voice in her head, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
But what choice did she have? She’d been told to leave the investigation alone, that it was shifting to Washington where they had more resources to spare, that they were happy with all she’d done, thankyouverymuch, but it was time to move on.
A delicate matter, Don had said when he’d called her out of the blue. You understand, he’d said. You’re a fine officer, and we’re proud of you, Diana. But this one has to be handled with kid gloves.
Because Viktor was rich and powerful, and most of the world thought him a good man with his charitable organization.
He gave money to causes, and she had no doubt some of his causes were sitting in the US House and Senate.
And they were eager to protect him. It only took one of them to make a call to the FBI and demand her investigation stop.
Diana dragged in a breath. It’d been a long month since she’d been told to stand down.
A long month since she’d bolted to One Shot Tactical and practically had a meltdown.
Alex had been utterly unmoved by her emotional outburst, but in the end she’d believed him when he said it wasn’t him who’d gotten her taken off the case.
She might never know who’d made the call, but she wasn’t letting an anonymous asshole protect yet another rich man who thought he was untouchable.
She’d played the game in the weeks since, gone to work every day, did the mundane things she’d been asked to do.
She’d moved into the Sutton building, but she never went to the Dawg when Alex or his friends were there.
She saw Emma sometimes. Emma was a bubbly, friendly person and she invited Diana for drinks, but she always found a way to refuse.
She knew Emma only did it because she was kind, raised by a kind mother and father, but Blaze wouldn’t want Diana in their home. So she said no.
Now she was out here on her own, deep in the wilds of Alabama, looking for a gathering of the Dashevsky Group’s followers. Nobody knew what she was doing. She hadn’t told her partner, and she certainly hadn’t told anyone in her chain of command.
Not after the spectacular blow up she’d had in the director’s office recently. A blow up that’d resulted in some enforced time off, in fact.
Now she was just a woman with time on her hands, driving around looking for a farm where some folks were getting together to shoot and then party.
She didn’t think she was in danger, but if she managed to get deeper into the organization after today, she could be.
Depended on how deeply they looked into her background.
And whether or not Viktor took a personal interest in this particular group.
She found the turn and continued through the woods.
The trees were turning, the leaves a brilliant orange, yellow, and brown.
In Sutton’s Creek, they were preparing for the Fall Founder’s Fest and Halloween.
Colleen Wright, proprietor of The Mystic Chick with her friend Reba, was in her element these days.
She wore black exclusively and gave cemetery walking tours, intoning the scary parts in a deep and sonorous voice before doing something silly like screaming.
Once, Reba had fallen into an open grave, and that resulted in a lot more screaming than usual.
Diana heard all about it at Miss Mary’s Diner the next morning as people snorted into their coffee and tutted about the poor dear.
Colleen tried to pretend it’d been on purpose, but the fact Reba refused to go on the next few walking tours told another story.
At least according to Miss Mary. It was never dull in Sutton’s Creek, that’s for sure.
Diana drove into a small valley, her heart squeezing at the sight of all the cars parked there.
She could still turn around. It wasn’t too late.
Maybe she should have told Ackerman what she was doing.
He was older than she was. Not enough to be her father, but he was fatherly to her despite being recently divorced—again—and dating.
She liked him. He didn’t leer or make snide remarks.
He treated her like a partner should be treated, and he smoothed the way on the job by being far more personable with people than she was capable of.
If she’d told him what she was doing, she risked fatherly disapproval—and she risked tainting him with guilt by association. He’d already moved on from chasing after illegal weapons and proving a militia connection to Viktor Dashevsky. He didn’t know she hadn’t let it go. That she couldn’t.
She parked and steeled her nerves, then opened her door and stepped onto the grass.
She’d worn jeans and hiking boots, a flannel shirt over a black t-shirt, and her gun was visible on her hip because that’s what these people did.
Her hair was loose because she hadn’t wanted to look too much like her FBI persona, and she’d put on lip-gloss.
She locked the car and started toward the staging area where they’d roped off part of the field. There were targets set around the field, and a berm at one end. At least somebody was concerned with safety.
“Hey, Diana! You made it.” A woman waved at her, a can of cider in one hand and a 1911 on her hip. Probably a 9 mil. The .45 was iconic if a bit strong on the recoil.
Diana waved back and pasted on a friendly smile. “Hey, Tessa. Haven’t seen you around Big Mike’s lately.”
Tessa came over and they did a side hug. “Yeah, I been busy working at the salon and haven’t been out much. Dwight’s been on the road a lot, but he’s home now. I’m fucking stoked to be here! Gonna do a little shootin’, a little drinking, maybe smoke a little weed. Then I’m gonna get laid.”
She threw her head back and laughed, and Diana laughed with her.
Tessa elbowed her in the side. “I thought you and Teddy were heading that way. He seemed sweet on you.”
“Nah, we’re just friends. He couldn’t make it today. Had to work a shift last minute.”
“Aw, poor guy. Gotta get paid, though, right? So you gonna find you a man out here, huh? Somebody to take home and warm the bed?”
Diana’s heart kicked. “I might. Depends on if I see something I like.”
Tessa waggled her eyebrows. “Plenty to choose from, hon.”
“Tessa! Get your ass over here,” a big man hollered. He wore camouflage and had an AR-15 slung across his back.
“Oh, Dwight’s calling. Gotta go! See you!”
“See you.”
Tessa trotted over to Dwight, who wrapped an arm around her and pressed a possessive kiss to her mouth before grabbing her ass and squeezing. Tessa swatted his ass in return and the two of them disappeared in the milling crowd.
Diana shrugged to loosen tight muscles. There were a lot of people today, mostly men, though some women too.
The odor of cooking meat filled the air.
Smoke rose from a couple of big grills and there was a table with plates, utensils, and sides.
Coolers held drinks such as cider, beer, sodas, and water.
She wandered over to the food, hoping to strike up a conversation there.
She’d been hanging out at Big Mike’s lately, though she didn’t see anybody she knew from there besides Tessa.
It was a bar in Huntsville where people who were connected with the group spent time.
There were other locations around town, but she’d chosen that one precisely because it wasn’t where Brent Gannon, the former Air Force colonel who worked at the Missile Defense Agency, hung out.
Alex and his people had surveilled Gannon, and though he’d said they didn’t find anything interesting, Diana wasn’t taking a chance he’d been lying—or that one of his people would still be watching and then he’d confront her about what she was doing.
She imagined him, darkly handsome as he’d stared at her the day she’d accused him of getting her taken off the case.
He was always darkly handsome, always enigmatic enough to tug at something deep inside her that craved his approval.
The Ghost Ops men were accomplished, lethal, and committed to their oaths. All of them were formidable.
But Alex was something more. He’d run an operation against orders to rescue Colonel—now Major General—John Mendez from a conspiracy.
In the process, a vice president had been implicated and removed from office, and Alex had been promoted to full Colonel—at a younger than usual age—and restored to his duties along with Mendez and the entire Hostile Operations Team.
He’d been intended to take command of that organization one day, but then he’d been chosen to lead the Ghost Ops team and had to give up that career path. He was a complex man, that’s for certain.