CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I can’t believe you have a safe house,” Lennox said, taking in industrial space that had been turned into an ultra-modern multi-bedroom apartment while still looking for all the world like an unoccupied office building from the outside. There was even covered parking in the back so no one driving by would even know there were people there.
Colt, Wes, and Darwin walked into the living room from the kitchen, each carrying a plate of sandwiches they’d put together for a late-night snack. Kirk and Simon had left earlier, still not talking to each other but insistent that they needed to get some sleep before an early training session in the morning.
If Lennox listened carefully, he could just make out the sounds of a shower running in one of the bedrooms at the end of the long, central hallway. Talia and Katrina had disappeared in there about fifteen minutes ago, both saying they needed to clean up and change. He imagined taking a shower would help but mostly he suspected both of them needed some time to decompress from all the excitement. Neither had handled the situation very well.
“This building used to be four separate businesses,” Kyla said as she sat back on a large leather sofa beside Wes, sipping coffee from a mug big enough to swim in. “The area over there, where the kitchen is now, used to be my father’s office. Or his secret lair technically, since I never knew he owned it. It turned out he had this whole secret life as a hacker for the CIA. When I found out he’d left me the office and that the place was slated to be demolished due to lack of occupancy, I ended up buying the entire building. I couldn’t let them tear it down.”
Having been in Wes’s platoon for a while, Lennox had heard a lot of stories about Kyla’s father, his murder, and how she’d tracked down the killer. Lennox didn’t know all the details, but he knew she’d risked her life to do it and fallen in love with Wes at the same time. The one thing he didn’t know was where she’d come up with enough money to buy an entire office building—even one that was slated to be demolished. Then again, Kyla was scary good with a computer and almost certainly could have hacked her way into ownership of the place. It was probably better not knowing since she’d also provided the M4 carbines they’d used tonight.
Plausible deniability and all that.
“How much trouble are you going to get in for losing that surveillance van?” Colt asked as he handed Lennox one of the sandwiches. Peanut butter and jelly wasn’t his normal two in the morning go-to snack but all that running around tonight had made him hungry and he wasn’t going to turn up his nose at whatever Kyla happened to have stockpiled in her safe house.
“It’s not going to be a problem at all.” Smiling, Kyla sipped her coffee. How she expected to sleep tonight after drinking that much caffeine was beyond him, but he was all about letting people do their own thing. “I picked up the surveillance van for chump change at a police auction in Portland. Apparently, the drug dealer it belonged to was using it to spy on his competitors.”
“Won’t the vehicle get tracked back to you through the sales paperwork?” Darwin asked, inhaling half a peanut butter sandwich in a single bite. “Even with the thermite grenade Lennox threw in there, they’ll still find the VIN.”
“As far as the auction house in Portland is concerned, the van was bought by a procurement agent for the Seattle PD,” Kyla said in a nonchalant tone. “There’s nothing that will ever lead back to me.”
Lennox glanced at Wes and then the other two guys. In the end, they couldn’t do anything but shrug in acceptance that Kyla was a truly unique woman. It was a good thing she was working on their side. She’d be scary to have to deal with as an enemy.
“It still sucks to lose an asset like that, even if it can’t be tracked back to you,” Darwin pointed out as he finished his last sandwich and put the plate on the coffee table in front of him.
“No big deal.” She waved one hand while taking another sip of coffee with the other. “It’s not like that was the only surveillance van I have.”
Lennox shook his head. Just when he thought he understood how clever and devious Kyla was, she turned around and said, “ You know nothing, Lennox Thompson! ”
“Okay, now that we know we don’t have to worry about the SDPD showing up at our door asking about burning van and automatic weapon fire in the middle of the city, maybe we should talk about what we’re going to do about everything we learned tonight?” Lennox said.
“I’d love to talk about what we learned,” Darwin added. “Because truthfully, I didn’t understand almost anything we heard tonight. Especially that part about this Sentinel organization.”
Kyla sighed. “I’m hoping that after listening to all the audio feeds and going through all the video footage, I’ll come up with something to explain everything. All I can say for sure at this point is that Keller and this Sentinel group have somehow extracted a payment or obligation from each of those people in the conference room.”
“A payment or obligation?” Wes echoed. “Seems like a nice way to say they’re blackmailing or threatening them into doing something they want.”
“Probably,” Kyla admitted. “But it’s also entirely possible that some of them could be involved with Keller’s organization willingly. I’m hoping I’ll find out more later after I have a chance to do some digging.”
Darwin frowned. “Regardless of whether they’re involved willingly or not, I’m more concerned about what Keller and Sentinel are up to. What would a bunch of international terrorists want with a manufacturing and bio-tech firm, a politician, and a crime lord? Some kind of new weapon of mass destruction?”
Given the silence that followed the question, Lennox knew that everyone else was as baffled as he was. Even Kyla, which worried the hell out of him.
“It could be a weapon of some kind, but my gut is telling me there’s something else going on,” Lennox said. “I don’t know what, but it feels bigger than a weapon.”
Everyone fell silent again, the other guys finishing their sandwiches while Kyla nursed her big mug of coffee. In the background, Lennox could still hear Talia and Katrina moving around in one of the bedrooms.
“Do we think there’s a chance Keller still has Anna alive somewhere?” Darwin asked. “I know most of us were hoping to hear something at that meeting to clue us in on what might have happened to her. I’m just not sure whether the fact that her name never came up is good or bad.”
“If we’re going to talk about Anna,” Lennox interrupted, “I should go get Talia and Katrina. They’ll want to be involved in the conversation.”
Without waiting for an answer, Lennox stood and headed down the hallway. As he neared the open door of the bedroom, he heard Talia and Katrina talking in soft, hushed tones. Not wanting to intrude on a private conversation, he held back a second until he figured out what they were talking about. It only took a moment to realize they were talking about what they’d seen on the video cameras during the surveillance raid.
“I was so scared when I saw all those armed men walking past the room Lennox was hiding in,” Talia was saying. “All I could think about were one of those men seeing Lennox and Colt and then everything going wrong. I thought I was going to be sick the entire time we sat there listening to that meeting.”
“Yeah, that was terrible,” Katrina said with a sigh. “But what about being in that van as it was being shot to crap around our heads? And running through those alleys? It was like a nightmare that wouldn’t end.”
The silence that met that statement was jarring in its significance. It hurt Lennox down to his soul to know he’d put Talia through such a horrible experience.
“Do you think it’s always like that?” Talia asked, her voice soft as if reliving a painful moment. “The chaos, the confusion, the gut-clenching fear?”
“I don’t know,” Katrina admitted. “What happened tonight might be a normal day in the life of a SEAL. Darwin saved my life like he’d done it a hundred times.”
Talia was quiet for so long that he was about to give up and walk in and check on her but her hesitant frightened words when she finally spoke made him wait.
“Now that I’ve seen what it’s like, I’m not sure if I can handle the reality of Lennox being in situations like this all the time. I’d have a nervous breakdown every time Lennox goes anywhere, worrying that he’s involved in something like what we experienced tonight.”
Lennox stood there, the words like a punch to his gut, making it hard to breathe.
“What are you going to do about you and Lennox?” Katrina asked. “Are you going to keep seeing him?”
He didn’t need to hear her answer. He already knew what she was going to say. Fighting the instinct to turn and walk away, he walked into the bedroom.
“Hey,” he said casually. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’re all talking about what we think tonight means for Anna, and everyone thought you two might want to sit in on the conversation.”
It didn’t take more than a glance to realize that Talia had been crying, which only served to tear Lennox’s heart open that much more. As he led the way down the hallway and into the living room, he decided he’d rather be shot at than have Talia dump him.
Lennox somehow kept his crap together until Talia left with Katrina an hour later. Kyla and Wes soon followed. He vaguely heard her saying something about making sure to lock the place and turn off the lights.
The conversation concerning Anna had gone nowhere. Outside of the fact that they still had no body, nothing had changed. But no body found had to be a good sign. People like Keller rarely left evidence behind. The theory that he needed that ship in order to get Anna out of the country was discussed and dismissed as far-fetched. If the man needed a ship, it was for some other reason than getting her out of the country. From that point, the discussion had shifted to Talia and Katrina’s safety.
“Do you think it’s safe for Katrina and me to go home?” Talia had asked. “What if Bogdan and Fredrickson realize we were there?”
Colt and Darwin had explained that there was no way anyone had seen them, not when they’d been in the van or running through the alleys. Returning back to work like normal would be the best thing so no one would ask any questions.
Even now, Lennox’s head spun at the thought of Talia being in even a little bit of danger because of the mess this op had turned into. He was supposed to be keeping her out of danger, not getting her into it.
He was so caught up in those thoughts he barely heard Darwin talking about what had happened after he and Katrina had run away from the surveillance van. Apparently, Darwin had a thing for her. While his relationship with Talia was going up in flames.
“Earth to Lennox. Come in, Lennox.”
He looked up to see Colt and Darwin regarding him in concern.
“You okay?” Colt asked. “You’ve been zoned out since you came back into the living room after going to get Talia and Katrina. What’s going on with you?”
Sighing, Lennox repeated the conversation he’d overheard between Talia and Katrina and the effect tonight’s op was going to have on his future with her.
“What are you going to do?” Darwin asked.
“I don’t know.”
From where he was sitting on the other couch, Colt frowned. “What do you want out of this thing you have with Talia? I mean, I know you like her, but it sounds like you were looking for something long-term.”
Lennox didn’t even have to think about it. “I’ve fallen for her. Faster than I ever would have imagined. I didn’t even realize I was looking for something real until it smacked me in the face.”
“I don’t have a lot of experience with serious relationships,” Darwin said, then snorted. “To be honest, I don’t have any at all. But I think you need to sit down with Talia and tell her how you feel. If you expect her to willingly sign up for a life with a Navy SEAL then you need to let her know how much you care about her.”
Lennox pulled out his phone and opened ESPN, scrolling through the latest sports news. “I get what you’re saying but I’m not sure I see the point since Talia has already made up her mind.”
This conversation was making his head hurt.
On the other couch, Colt and Darwin exchanged looks.
“Dude, you’re an adult so you get to make your own decisions about how you want to live your life but to me, it sounds like you’re the one who’s already made up your mind about breaking up,” Colt said. “If you like Talia as much as you claim, isn’t it worth it to be honest with her? If it doesn’t work out after that, at least you know you tried.”
Lennox didn’t say anything. Colt was right, of course. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt like hell when Talia broke up with him anyway.